Chad Comello

Tag: Christianity

  • I found religion in ‘Palm Springs’

    Originally published at Cinema Sugar.

    What do you do when you encounter the impossible? Something that doesn’t compute with your understanding of reality and drastically challenges your worldview?

    You can ignore or deny it, confident the existing story you tell yourself can render any mystery or inconsistency meaningless to your everyday life. You can resent it and lash out in anger, yearning for the time before this thing crashed into your conscience and caused irrevocable change. You can also lean into it, treating it not as a threat but as a thread that needs just the slightest tug to unravel. 

    On my journey away from the religion of my youth, I did all three pretty much at the same time. And not only that, but I saw those very same dynamics play out among the three core characters in Max Barbakow’s 2020 film Palm Springs—a terrific time-loop comedy (and one of the best movies of the 21st century) with a lot on its mind. 

    A magical combo of humor and humanity

    There are many reasons I fell for Palm Springs when I first saw it. The rock-solid execution of a smart, cohesive script. The magical combination of goofy comedy, heartfelt drama, mind-shifting philosophy, and a soupçon of sci-fi. The kickass cast with great chemistry keeping a high concept grounded in humanity, all within a 90-minute runtime. 

    Its obvious inspiration is Groundhog Day, which has Bill Murray’s Phil repeating the same day over and over again until he learns to be a better person, falls in love, and then manages to escape the loop for reasons just as mysterious as how he got stuck in the first place. But Palm Springs takes this concept deeper in two ways. 

    First, there’s more people in the loop. Nyles (Andy Samberg) has been stuck for a long time when we first meet him as the underdressed, overserved, and clearly jaded boyfriend of a bridesmaid at a Palm Springs resort wedding. Then there’s Sarah (Cristin Milioti), the equally jaded maid of honor who hits it off with Nyles but accidentally follows him through the loop’s mysterious portal. And there’s also Roy (J.K. Simmons), another wedding guest Nyles had clumsily invited into the loop while under the influence. How these three deal with each other and their circumstances is the core of the movie, and a pleasure to watch unfold.

    The other way Palm Springs sets itself apart is how it treats the time loop. More than just a setting for the characters’ self-discovery or catalyst for conflict, it becomes a force unto itself—something that both teaches and torments the film’s triumvirate of trapped time travelers, and ultimately gives them meaning even as they attempt to escape it. 

    In other words: the time loop is a religion. 

    On suffering existence

    In the book Life’s Too Short to Pretend You’re Not Religious, the writer David Dark explores one etymology of the word religion (fitting there isn’t One True Meaning of the word), which comes from the Latin religare, meaning “to bind fast” or tie together. Dark uses this understanding to interpret religion as a “controlling story”—something we bind or devote ourselves to that provides boundaries to our beliefs and gives our earthly existence greater meaning.

    That’s what Christianity was for me. Growing up in a conservative Christian household, I went to church regularly and lived out the staples of a Christian upbringing: weekly youth group, summer camp, Bible studies, mission trips, See You At The Pole (Google it), True Love Waits (don’t Google it). 

    I didn’t do all of this reluctantly—I was a true believer. From childhood all the way through adolescence, college, and into my mid-twenties, the Jesus story provided the foundation of how I understood the world and myself. It was the lens through which I saw and interpreted the things I loved doing like reading, writing, listening to and making music, and watching movies. Even as I wrestled with the inconsistencies of the Bible and grew frustrated with the hypocrisies of religious figures and church doctrine, I maintained an earnest devotion to the notion that faith superseded all other earthly forces and permeated everything we understand about existence. 

    For Nyles, Sarah, and Roy, the time loop has in effect become their religion, their controlling story. Not only because they’re literally controlled by its parameters and seemingly powerless to escape, but also in a larger sense in that they all come to discover a kind of teleological understanding of the loop and the meaning they’ve derived from it. Nyles shares his with Sarah in one exchange:

    NYLES: I don’t know what it is. It could be life, it could be death. It might be a dream. I might be imagining you, you might be imagining me. It could be purgatory or a glitch in the simulation that we’re both in. I don’t know. So I decided a while ago to sort of give up and stop trying to make sense of things altogether, because the only way to really live in this is to embrace the fact that nothing matters.

    SARAH: Well, then what’s the point of living?

    NYLES: Well, we kind of have no choice but to live, so I think your best bet is just to learn how to suffer existence.

    Each of them suffer their existence in different ways, all of which felt exquisitely familiar to me because I lived out all of them during my long journey out of my original controlling story. 

    Nyles has surrendered to his circumstances, comfortable in the literal and metaphorical pool he’s been swimming in for so long that he doesn’t even remember his life from before, or fathom the possibility of leaving his present one. Likewise, I’d grown so familiar with the beats and boundaries of my controlling story that the thought of forming a new one felt inconceivable, even dangerous. 

    In contrast to Nyles, Roy feels tormented by his circumstances and takes out his anger on Nyles as retribution for trapping him in an ever-presence he can’t escape. And while I wasn’t perpetrating vengeful acts of violence like Roy, I often felt disturbed by the destabilizing effects such deep-seated change had on my worldview and resented losing the comforts a controlling story provides. “I’m not going to see my kids grow up,” Roy later laments to Nyles at his home in Irvine, revealing that his anger was just grief in disguise—his way of dealing with the pain of being severed from his own life and concept of reality. Yet now, awash in contentment with his fate, Roy implores Nyles to seek out a similar peace: “You gotta find your Irvine.”

    Sarah, meanwhile, is wracked with guilt over a haunting mistake she now has to relive over and over again, and despite coming to enjoy her time in the loop with Nyles she eventually hits a breaking point and resolves to figure out the mechanics of the time loop (which she later determines is “a box of energy”) in order to escape it. Similarly, as I grew more claustrophobic within my own metaphysical box, I ultimately found a way beyond it through curiosity. I entered a period of voracious reading, when I was drawn to books about psychology, science, human history, and other topics that spoke to the big-picture questions I was pondering. Slowly but surely, the discoveries I was making gave me new lenses to look through and see what had been there the whole time, like the Benjamin Franklin spectacles in National Treasure. 

    I wasn’t trying to destroy my existing worldview, and there wasn’t one particular thing that pushed me over the edge. Just a long series of small nudges that only when I looked back after a long while had accumulated into a big distance from where I’d started: a book here, a revelatory podcast there, the small epiphanies and paradoxes compounded slowly over years until they proved too overwhelming to ignore. 

    A nonsensical new story

    There’s an idea in cognitive science that human consciousness is merely a story the brain tells itself. Humans are meaning-making machines—we crave relief from the chaos of existence and will find or create meaning however we can as a way to make sense of the nonsensical. 

    Palm Springs features three people who lived a nonsensical new story together, day after day, trying and failing and giving up and trying again to find meaning in the messiness. It’s the kind of movie that inspires me as a work of art and as a cri de coeur for a better, more wholehearted life. 

    (It’s a cruel irony indeed that a movie about purgatory remains caught in a different kind of purgatory, where “streaming exclusives” can’t break free from their digital dungeons into the freedom of physical media. #ReleaseThePalmSpringsBluray!)

    We all have a controlling story. It could be ancient (Christianity, Islam, Judaism) or au courant (hello Peloton partisans, Bitcoin bros, and Disney Adults). Mine has changed, and yours probably has too. It has to, or else I don’t think you’re really living. 

    Ideally you have someone who can change with you too. I was fortunate to have a life partner throughout this journey who had shared a similar controlling story yet was just as ready as I was to, like Nyles and Sarah, take a scary step into a new one together. 

    “At least you have each other,” Roy tells Nyles about Sarah’s entry into the loop. “Nothing worse than going through this shit alone.”

    Dark makes a similar conclusion in his book: “People come to consciousness in relationship. This is the phenomenon—oh, how it enlivens a heart!—of shared meaning.”

    I’ve found my Irvine. 

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  • Siskel & Ebert, Mark Driscoll, and the Power of Popularity

    Among the podcasts in my regular rotation, there are two others I’m listening to that are both limited series, airing concurrently, and happen to share a surprising thematic overlap.

    One is Gene and Roger, an eight-part Spotify-exclusive series from The Ringer that serves as an oral history of Gene Siskel, Roger Ebert, and their movie criticism legacy. The other is The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill from Christianity Today, which charts the story of Mars Hill Church and its controversial pastor Mark Driscoll.

    What’s the connection between these two disparate stories? The epiphany came after listening to recent episodes of both shows, released on the same day.

    For the brand

    “Top Guns” finds Siskel and Ebert reaching new heights of exposure, popularity, and power through their TV show and “two thumbs up” brand. Meanwhile, “The Brand” follows Driscoll as he and Mars Hill’s burgeoning marketing team harness technology and internet to build his personal brand and rocket the church’s growth.

    Both subjects became celebrities within their domains despite their unlikely origins, unorthodox approaches, and often prickly demeanor. Whatever criticism that came their way—like for the reductive sloganeering of Siskel and Ebert’s “two thumbs up” and for Driscoll’s macho masculinity and objectification of women—was overshadowed by their surprising success and cultural ubiquity.

    Movies and machismo

    Though I was too young to watch Siskel and Ebert together on TV at the time, I was a regular viewer of the post-Siskel iteration with Richard Roeper and even the post-Ebert version with Michael Phillips and A.O. Scott. Before podcasts and social media, this was the only time I could see intelligent people arguing about movies. You also couldn’t be a film lover and understand what it means to write and think about movies without Ebert’s influence specifically. (His Great Movies anthologies are an essential resource, and the documentary Life Itself is a great primer on his life and work.)

    Driscoll had a similar influence within American Christianity. I listened to his sermon podcasts through iTunes in the early 2010s, back when they were usually topping the Religion charts (and back when I was still listening to sermons). Driscoll’s tough-guy personality and the reported toxic culture of Mars Hill eventually turned me off, but his cultural cache lived on—probably peaking with his infamous trolling of Obama for his second Inauguration—until Mars Hill’s demise less than two years later on account of Driscoll’s bullying and “patterns of persistent sinful behavior”.

    The beauty of synchronicity

    The comparisons do fade at some point. The end of Siskel and Ebert—as a show and as individuals—was caused by untimely illness, while it was Driscoll’s behavior that led to his disgrace.

    Still, it was a synchronistic delight to catch both of these excellent podcasts at the right moment to hear how seemingly unrelated stories can inform each other. One of the benefits of subscribing to (probably) too many podcasts…

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  • One Wild Life’s Too Short

    I’ve learned that when I encounter two different works of art saying the same thing at basically the same time, I should probably listen.

    This is what happened when I recently came across references to this query in two different places: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

    You’ve probably seen this quote, the final couplet in Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day”, on pictures of sunsets or accompanying “Adventure” boards on Pinterest. I encountered it elsewhere. First, it’s the inspiration for Gungor’s One Wild Life, a trilogy of albums entitled Soul (2015), Spirit (2016), and Body (forthcoming). I had Soul on heavy rotation when on a whim I picked up David Dark’s new book Life’s Too Short to Pretend You’re Not Religious, simply because of the provocative title.

    Together, these distinct works of art share more than just the Oliver quote, which Dark also directly references. They preach a similar message in a way that’s accessible to a wide audience of readers and listeners who crave a richer understanding of religion.

    Dark’s thesis is evident from the book’s title. Religion is more than where (or if) you go to church. It’s the “controlling story” of your life, “the story you tell yourself about yourself to others.” Interpreted this way, capitalism could count as a religion for many Americans, though few would self-identify as a born and raised capitalist like they would Catholic. And that’s Dark’s point: the story we tell about our religious backgrounds and assumptions “doesn’t always coincide with what we think — or say — we believe.” Getting who we think we are in sync with who we are in reality is the fundamental struggle of anyone striving for virtue, let alone churchgoers who wear their faith on their sleeves.

    Likewise, One Wild Life — which Michael and Lisa Gungor have described as the result of “the hardest year of our lives” — explores how “our eyes have grown dim to the wonder of our existence, of how fundamentally connected we already are to one another and to everything.” This desire for connection floods the album. In “We Are Stronger,” between clap-like percussion as if to applaud the point, they sing:

    You and me

    We’re the stuff of stars and dirt

    With eyes to see

    I can’t meet you eye to eye

    But I can take your hand in mine

    Both the Gungor album and Dark’s book also share a distrust of labels and of what they do to our relationships. “We love our labels as ourselves,” Dark writes, “even as they don’t — and can’t — do justice to the complexity of our own lived lives or anyone else’s. It’s as if we’ll do anything to avoid the burden of having to think twice.”

    A healthy community, however, demands that burden from its members, if only to promote eschewing self-interest in favor of serving others. “People come to consciousness in relationship,” Dark continues. “This is the phenomenon — oh, how it enlivens a heart! — of shared meaning.” Such shared meaning is lost when labels calcify into dogmatic division and unbind our common membership, not only as a body of believers but as human beings. In “Us for Them,” Gungor addresses this directly, singing beneath orchestral explosions and driving, defiant drums:

    We reject the either-or

    They can’t define us anymore

    Cause if it’s us or them

    It’s us for them

    To some this may sound like a vague plea for world peace; to me it’s the essence of Christianity. I think Dark agrees: “To be whole is to be part,” he writes. “None of us gets to have our meaning alone.” Whatever each of us does with our one wild and precious life, let’s not forget to share it.

    Originally published at ThinkChristian.

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  • The Church of NaNoWriMo

    My name is Chad Comello and I am a failed novelist.

    I’m in the midst of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which issues a lofty goal for aspiring literary types: write 50,000 words in the span of 30 days, no matter what. Budding scribes of every stripe participate in this movement throughout the month of November, all with the goal of a first draft by December 1. The point is not to make it good, only to make it in time. Quantity over quality. Completion over perfection.

    So, in late October, I formulated bullet points for a plot, roughly sketched out some characters and determined a setting that I thought would provide me ample room to flesh out a story over 50,000 words. On November 1, my excitement at starting a new adventure into the fictional unknown quickly devolved into existential gnashing of teeth. After writing for what felt like a long time, I’d only gotten down about 500 words and most of it was filler. Was this what writing a novel was like? I quickly fell behind the prescribed 1,667-words-per-day pace and despaired about my chances for achieving literary glory.

    Despite the planning, good intentions and hope I had in my abilities, I failed to live up to the NaNoWriMo creed. But through this experience, I’ve noticed that the movement has, over its 15-year span, become a religious practice of sorts that churchgoers of all kinds would recognize. Like the liturgy of orthodox believers, NaNoWriMo writers commit to daily practice of a writing ritual no matter how tired or rote it seems on any given day. Mirroring Bible studies and church small groups, the “write-ins” that libraries and writing groups sponsor provide a place to foster community, pledge accountability, and inspire others along the journey. And above all there exists an ultimate goal, a reason for all the fuss. For NaNoWriMo, it’s 50,000 words of something: a novel, a collection of short stories or maybe the first installment of the next big YA dystopian series. Whatever it is, it won’t be ready for bookstore displays on December 1, but it will be a start.

    But what of the faith journey? If Christianity were reduced to a month’s worth of daily quotas to hit, would it still be Christianity? Certainly such dogmatic legalism exists within the faith (within any faith at that), but to me that misses the point. There is indeed a righteous purpose for the sacraments and spiritual practices that infuse a devout life. But in fiction as in faith, I believe the story reigns. Whether through the history of Israel in the Old Testament, the poetry of the Psalms or the parables of Jesus, Christianity values stories and storytelling for their artistic value and for their utility. The Christian story, which was crafted over a much longer time span than a month, continues in this vein when each of us writes the lessons of Jesus into our own narratives in the form of works of service as well as acts of faith.

    My name is Chad Comello and I am a failed Christian. That’s my story thus far and that’s OK. Tomorrow I’ll come back to the table and try again. Though I quickly and easily fail to keep up with the ideal—in writing or in religion—I’m doing something every day to get better. I’ve stopped worrying about how many words I rack up or how many random acts of kindness I perform and instead focus on cherishing the opportunity to write, to create and to do life better than yesterday. Disciples of Jesus, go and do likewise.

    Originally published at Think Christian.

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  • DDC 290-299: Like the ending of LOST

    A Teach Me How To Dewey production

    This Is How We Dewey:

    • 290 Other & comparative religions
    • 291 Comparative religion
    • 292 Classical (Greek & Roman) religion
    • 293 Germanic religion
    • 294 Religions of Indian origin
    • 295 Zoroastrianism (Mazdaism, Parseeism)
    • 296 Judaism
    • 297 Islam, Bábism & Bahá’í Faith
    • 298 No longer used—formerly Mormonism
    • 299 Other religions

    As acknowledged back in DDC 220-229, the 200s have been overwhelmingly biased toward Christianity. But don’t fear, every other religious person reading this: your time has come! The Lords of Dewey have deigned the 290s the “Oh Crap We Forgot All The Other Religions” section. Hence Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and every other possible religious -ism bunched together in the caboose for a SparkNotes tour through ancient and modern religion and spirituality. Certainly not adequate space for the plethora of writing out there, but it’s the best Dewey is willing to do at this point.

    Time for an #OccupyDewey campaign? Only the people can decide. Meanwhile, we’ve concluded what has to be the most contentious section in all of Dewey. (What’s that? The 320s are Political Science?)

    The Dew3:

    Buddha or Bust: In Search of Truth, Meaning, Happiness and the Man Who Found Them All
    By Perry Garfinkel
    Dewey: 294.3
    Random Sentence: “Like any tourist, I was eager to visit what has been dubbed the Disneyland of Buddhist monasteries.”

    Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life
    By John Tarrant
    Dewey: 294.34432
    Random Sentence: “Why can’t clear-eyed Bodhisattvas sever the red thread?”

    Heaven on Earth: A Journey Through Shari’a Law From the Deserts of Ancient Arabia to the Streets of the Modern Muslim World
    By Sadakat Kadri
    Dewey: 297
    Random Sentence: “Shafi’i’s vision, as amplified by later generations of students, was destined to prevail.”

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  • DDC 280-289: The denomination is in the details

    A Teach Me How To Dewey production

    This Is How We Dewey:

    • 280 Christian denominations & sects
    • 281 Early church & Eastern churches
    • 282 Roman Catholic Church
    • 283 Anglican churches
    • 284 Protestants of Continental origin
    • 285 Presbyterian, Reformed, Congregational
    • 286 Baptist, Disciples of Christ, Adventist
    • 287 Methodist & related churches
    • 288 No longer used—formerly Unitarian
    • 289 Other denominations & sects

    Outside of being Protestant, I don’t have a specific denominational background. In spite (or because?) of that, I find other denominations, sects, and congregational interpretations fascinating. As a non-participant in the holy wars between Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterian, and of course Catholics, I watch with equal parts confusion and admiration for the dedication each section holds for their specific ways. Though all housed under the “Christian” umbrella, their adherents have found many ways to diverge from each other since the very beginning of the faith. (Only those in the culture can appreciate/disdain the irony of “no longer used” being paired with Unitarianism.) Despite the division, there is much to be gained historically, sociologically, and theologically from reading about how each of these parts interact with each other and with the whole of the faith.

    Or, if you’re sick of Christianity, you can just wait for the 290s.

    The Dew3:

    Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint
    By Nadia Bolz-Weber
    Dewey: 284.135
    Random Sentence: “I’m not certain of the exact origins of the idea, but I’m guessing it was a biopic about Jim Morrison.”

    Living the Quaker Way: Timeless Wisdom for A Better Life Today
    By Philip Gulley
    Dewey: 289.6
    Random Sentence: “We spend much time yoked to the very devices we hoped would liberate us.”

    Rumspringa: To Be or Not to Be Amish
    By Tom Shachtman
    Dewey: 289.73
    Random Sentence: “She counters with an additional demand for fenders on the wheels.”

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  • DDC 270-279: Persecution junction

    A Teach Me How To Dewey production

    This Is How We Dewey:

    • 270 Christian church history
    • 271 Religious orders in church history
    • 272 Persecutions in church history
    • 273 Heresies in church history
    • 274 Christian church in Europe
    • 275 Christian church in Asia
    • 276 Christian church in Africa
    • 277 Christian church in North America
    • 278 Christian church in South America
    • 279 Christian church in other areas

    As with any honest historical assessment, this section’s books take on the good, the bad, and the ugly of Christianity’s past. 272 Persecutions could fill up an entire library. But many forget that though the Catholic Church has been responsible for some pretty heinous persecution over the years, the Christian church in general were also persecuted themselves for a long time. And even though Western Christianity (and religion in general) is fairly protected from persecution, there are places in the Middle East and Asia where being a Christian can get you killed. That’s what makes books like The Irresistible Revolution (see below)—which call for radical, countercultural living—get real real fast. In whatever time or place, people who really take their faith to heart will face the consequences of it, good and bad. And that makes one hell of a story.

    The Dew3:

    The Irresistible Revolution: Living as An Ordinary Radical
    By Shane Claiborne
    Dewey: 277.3
    Random Sentence: “I’m not sure the Christian Gospel always draws a crowd.”

    The Habit: A History of the Clothing of Catholic Nuns
    By Elizabeth Kuhns
    Dewey: 271.9
    Random Sentence: “Walking was to be accomplished in a calm, demure manner–hurrying was discouraged.”

    The Grand Inquisitor’s Manual: A History of Terror in the Name of God
    By Jonathan Kirsch
    Dewey: 272.2
    Random Sentence: “The old authoritarian impulse was still fully alive.”

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  • DDC 260-269: Fred Phelps would hate this

    A Teach Me How To Dewey production

    This Is How We Dewey:

    • 260 Christian social theology
    • 261 Social theology
    • 262 Ecclesiology
    • 263 Times, places of religious observance
    • 264 Public worship
    • 265 Sacraments, other rites & acts
    • 266 Missions
    • 267 Associations for religious work
    • 268 Religious education
    • 269 Spiritual renewal

    Is Christianity cool? Starting with this section through the next few, a lot of the books would give you some proof in the affirmative and in the negative. Obvious examples include the first book featured below, which explicitly asks that question, but also the books that don’t overtly make a claim yet by merely existing make a case.

    Sadly, much of what people see on cable news is the worst of so-called Christian social theology, propagated for clicks and viewers but not based in the day-to-day reality of living out the biggest religion on earth. If you love history or tradition, there is a lot of interesting stuff to explore in Christianity’s past that conveniently also has 0% to do with Westboro Baptist.

    The Dew3:

    Hipster Christianity: When Church and Cool Collide
    By Brett McCracken
    Dewey: 261.1
    Random Sentence: “For some pastors, this means they include references to Paris Hilton and The Hills in their sermons.”

    On Heaven and Earth: Pope Francis on Faith, Family, and the Church in the Twenty-First Century
    By Jorge Bergoglio
    Dewey: 261.83
    Random Sentence: “Christianity condemns both Communism and wild capitalism with the same vigor.”

    Rest: Living in Sabbath Simplicity
    By Keri Wyatt Kent
    Dewey: 263.2
    Random Sentence: “In play, we shed the shackles of schedule, efficiency, even purpose.”

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  • DDC 250-259: Parish Administration: The Movie

    A Teach Me How To Dewey production

    This Is How We Dewey:

    • 250 Christian orders & local church
    • 251 Preaching (Homiletics)
    • 252 Texts of sermons
    • 253 Pastoral office (Pastoral theology)
    • 254 Parish government & administration
    • 255 Religious congregations & orders
    • 256 No longer used—formerly Religious societies
    • 257 No longer used—formerly Parochial schools, libraries, etc.
    • 258 No longer used—formerly Parochial medicine
    • 259 Activities of the local church

    Are you ready for the explosive, blockbuster, wham-bang awesomeness that is 254 Parish government & administration? Can’t wait for a movie to be made out of books in that section. Meanwhile, I was surprised to find a lot of interesting material here. It ranged (as is evident below) from silly to sincere, with some strange mixed in too. I think it’s very important for any subculture to be able to make fun of itself, and there’s a good amount of evidence for that within Christianity, whether by current or former adherents. Of course, as a old religion it has its more rigid types, but we all need to laugh, especially when things are funny. Sounds obvious, but it’s easy to get trapped in the thinking that all sacred things must also be serious and earnest. Sometimes serious things are funny.

    The Dew3:

    Nuns Having Fun
    By Maureen Kelly
    Dewey: 255.9
    Random Sentence: “Protect us, O Lord, for we are upright women–at least for now.”

    Church Signs Across America
    By Steve Paulson
    Dewey: 254.4
    Random Sentence: “A good angle to approach any problem is the ‘try’-angle.”

    Strength to Love
    By Martin Luther King
    Dewey: 252
    Random Sentence: “We can master fear through one of the supreme virtues known to man: courage.”

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  • DDC 240-249: Ain’t your mama’s Christian writing

    A Teach Me How To Dewey production

    This Is How We Dewey:

    • 240 Christian moral & devotional theology
    • 241 Moral theology
    • 242 Devotional literature
    • 243 Evangelistic writings for individuals
    • 244 No longer used—formerly Religious fiction
    • 245 No longer used—formerly Hymnology
    • 246 Use of art in Christianity
    • 247 Church furnishings & articles
    • 248 Christian experience, practice, life
    • 249 Christian observances in family life

    The thing I like about sections like this is how it surprises. Even though (or perhaps because) I grew up in the Christian world and am very familiar with its tropes, biases, and tendencies, I love when I find new things—perspectives that challenge conventional wisdom or allow for greater nuance and a rich, learning experience.

    Anne Lamott (featured below) is a good example of this: though she is a Christian writer, she could hardly be more unconventional or irreverent in her approach and writing style. People who have either struggled with religiously oriented literature or written it off entirely would be pleasantly surprised by writers like her who, as the saying goes, ain’t your mama’s Christian writer. This is just one example of how Dewey, and really libraries in general, can surprise you if you take the time to browse and let serendipity be your guide.

    The Dew3:

    Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God’s Will
    By Kevin DeYoung
    Dewey: 248.4
    Random Sentence: “Wisdom sounds good but how does it work?”

    Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith
    By Anne Lamott
    Dewey: 248.4
    Random Sentence: “I was an out-of-control alcoholic then–but in a good way, I had thought.”

    Sin Bravely: A Joyful Alternative to A Purpose-Driven Life
    By Mark Ellingsen
    Dewey: 248.4
    Random Sentence: “Such a diminution of sin is what the American public wants.”

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  • DDC 230-239: Fresh loaves and fishes

    A Teach Me How To Dewey production

    This Is How We Dewey:

    • 230 Christian theology
    • 231 God
    • 232 Jesus Christ & his family
    • 233 Humankind
    • 234 Salvation (Soteriology) & grace
    • 235 Spiritual beings
    • 236 Eschatology
    • 237 No longer used—formerly Future state
    • 238 Creeds & catechisms
    • 239 Apologetics & polemics

    Probably because, not in spite of, Christianity’s hitherto cultural/religious hegemony in the United States specifically, it has inspired a lot of writing. Some good, some terrible, and some I’m not quite sure about. Reading Jesus (below), for example, seems to bring a new approach to the Gospels, which are arguably the most published and referenced texts in world history. At weddings, funerals, and many events in between we hear many of the same verses quoted as inspiration and encouragement, or as argument or counterargument. It’s easy to cherry-pick and plug in a verse for an occasion, but how often does it go beyond that? There’s a lot to consider if we want to get past the tired, old interpretations of religious orthodoxy, so as someone reared in the Christian world I appreciate those who try to look at Jesus and his teachings in fresh ways.

    The Dew3:

    Disappointment With God: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud
    By Philip Yancey
    Dewey: 231.7
    Random Sentence: “Richard does not know Mother Theresa, but he does know me.”

    Reading Jesus: A Writer’s Encounter With the Gospels
    By Mary Gordon
    Dewey: 232
    Random Sentence: “The darkness of my grandmother’s bedroom.”

    The Great Divorce
    By C.S. Lewis
    Dewey: 236.2
    Random Sentence: “‘Whisht, now!’ said my Teacher suddenly.”

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  • DDC 220-229: Blessed is Samuel L. Jackson

    A Teach Me How To Dewey production

    This Is How We Dewey:

    • 220 Bible
    • 221 Old Testament
    • 222 Historical books of Old Testament
    • 223 Poetic books of Old Testament
    • 224 Prophetic books of Old Testament
    • 225 New Testament
    • 226 Gospels & Acts
    • 227 Epistles
    • 228 Revelation (Apocalypse)
    • 229 Apocrypha & pseudepigrapha

    Regardless of how accurate it is in a given situation, deploying “Old Testament” as an intensifying adjective/adverb–i.e. “It’s about to get Old Testament up in here”–is one of my favorite things. To me in implies a righteous fury or a majestic/violent power that descends from above in order to make a plain scenario a whole lot less plain.

    I guess what I mean to say is that “Old Testament” seems like Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction: wide-eyed, vindictive, and not at all safe for work.

    Whether it’s a fight scene in a movie or an argument with a friend, the metaphorical and rhetorical power of the Old Testament is a lot more interesting than people (religious and secular) give it credit for. Those who saw the Darren Aronofsky film Noah will understand this, as that well-worn Old Testament tale got an authentically Old Testament retelling that both does justice to the text and brings that aforementioned righteous fury to the filmmaking and the story.

    What were we talking about again? Oh yeah… It is pretty evident by now that the 200s have a strong predilection toward Christianity. This is probably a remnant of the original Dewey classification of the mid-to-late 19th century, which was born in a much more faith-infused time than ours. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, since Christianity is often woefully misunderstood (or not understood at all) by its critics but also by its proponents. That’s certainly the case, too, for other major religions, so I guess the moral here is: Learn!

    The Dew3:

    The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible As Literally As Possible
    By A.J. Jacobs
    Dewey: 220
    Random Sentence: “The floor is exactly like a Seattle mosh pit circa 1992.”

    The Book of Books: The Radical Impact of the King James Bible, 1611-2011
    By Melvyn Bragg
    Dewey: 220.52
    Random Sentence: “Gravity was God’s other face.”

    Water from the Well: Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah
    By Anne Richardson Roiphe
    Dewey: 221.922082
    Random Sentence: “She must have been wrapped in regret.”

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  • In Heavenly Peace

    “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7 NIV)

    Paul beckons us to present with thanksgiving our requests to God. But he doesn’t say that by doing that those requests will be granted. The only thing Paul says we’re going to get for sure is the peace that comes from trusting that one’s desires are being heard. At that moment, whether they are eventually fulfilled isn’t the point.

    And why is this holy peace called upon to guard our hearts and minds in the first place? We need only look back at the beginning of the passage. The anxiety Paul refers to, and that we all feel, is often the impetus for praying at all (at least for me). I worry, therefore I pray. Paul, and the savior he speaks on behalf of, knows that prayer contains multitudes more uses than that, but I think he gives us a pass here. He knows how hard it is to send requests to the stars without knowing if or when you’ll hear back.

    Job hunters can sympathize well. When I click “Submit” on a job application, I have surrendered control over that process and am now at the mercy of someone else’s divine judgment. I worry my application for a job I’d be great at won’t even make it out of the résumé-infested swamp of the hiring manager’s inbox. I worry I’ll never stop hearing an assembly line of “no”s. I worry I’ll never get a great job again, that I’m doomed to endless days as a grocery store clerk or professional SimplyHired stalker.

    But this peace offered by the Comforter is tailor-made for worriers of all kinds. No matter what compels someone to pray, God has the same reply: Message received. Don’t worry, I’ve got your back.

    Gives new meaning to “sleep in heavenly peace.”

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  • The God of Freedom

    Andrew Sullivan highlighted this post by a woman named Rachael, the daughter of Matt Slick, the founder of Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry (CARM). Rachael is now an atheist, largely in response to what (at least according to her post) was a spiritually abusive upbringing at the hands of her fundamentalist father.

    To sum up: For a long time, Rachael was the “perfect” Christian child. She memorized Bible verses, passionately debated esoteric theological principles, and even “spouted off” religious arguments in college philosophy classes. She was so certain of her beliefs and took solace in the strength of her intellectual prowess. But soon the arguments she would make turned into questions of her own. The one that particularly stood out: “If God was absolutely moral, and if the nature of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ surpassed space, time, and existence, then why were some things a sin in the Old Testament but not a sin in the New Testament?” She concluded that there wasn’t an answer for this:

    Everyone had always explained this problem away using the principle that Jesus’ sacrifice meant we wouldn’t have to follow those ancient laws. 
But that wasn’t an answer. In fact, by the very nature of the problem, there was no possible answer that would align with Christianity.
 [Emphasis hers.]

    She felt a “vast chasm” opening up in her identity, hearing a voice that said The Bible is not infallible. If it’s not infallible, you’ve been basing your life’s beliefs on the oral traditions of a Middle Eastern tribe. The Bible lied to you. “

I was no longer a Christian,” she said.

    I recount her story here because I think it’s important to see how Rachael has jumped from one religious extreme to another without considering that there’s a middle ground. I’m blessed to have been reared in a positive, spiritually loving Christian home, so I can only imagine how difficult it was for Rachael to have endured such a destructive and rigid environment, and then to have her long-held and cherished assumptions smashed. In that context, I can understand why she has swung so strongly to the opposite end of the spiritual spectrum.

    But I don’t think Rachael ever understood the crux of Christianity. She certainly understood it intellectually (or at least her father’s version of it), but by being so thoroughly fixated on the word of the law she seems to have ignored its spirit and its embodiment in Jesus. Reason was her idol, her “summum bonum identity” that was so easily destroyed when it came under attack.

    But she has a new idol now. When asked whether she would have traded her childhood for another, Rachael said she wouldn’t:

    Without that childhood, I wouldn’t understand what freedom truly is — freedom from a life centered around obedience and submission, freedom to think anything, freedom from guilt and shame, freedom from the perpetual heavy obligation to keep every thought pure. Nothing I’ve ever encountered in my life has been so breathtakingly beautiful. 

Freedom is my God now, and I love this one a thousand times more than I ever loved the last one.

    This is ridiculous. Again: she has an understandably emotional aversion to the concepts of obedience, purity, and God. To her, obedience equals blindly following orders; purity equals punishing oneself for one’s humanity; and God equals a distant deity. But God is not the one who has lied about these things, and worshipping freedom is just as destructive as worshipping religion. Lord knows we Americans love to worship the god of freedom, but that also means we’re enslaved to it. We must have our guns, sugary drinks, money, land, power, sex, and so many other desirable but worthless things. We’re so subject to our whims and selfish desires that anyone trying to fight against them — a politician, pastor, or Jesus himself — is shouted down and has the Constitution thrown in his face.

    I believe in freedom just as I believe in beauty, love, grace, joy, and many other blessed things in this world, but I don’t want to be enslaved to them. Only when used in tandem with obedience to their creator can they be fully realized. Since she barely mentioned Jesus in her article, I’m guessing this is why Rachael has such a perverted view of Christianity. Good things alone will never satisfy without the will to obedience towards Jesus. This true obedience — not the abusive, authoritarian kind of obedience so many erstwhile Christians like Rachael have unfortunately endured — gives us the freedom to rely upon something bigger than our fractured selves.

    Despite becoming an atheist (and kind of a smug one at that), Rachael is no less religious than when she was a kid. Now, instead of worshipping words, she’s worshipping the god of her own volition. That probably feels better for her than what she had before, but it’s just as misguided.

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  • Colbert and The Constitution

    I want to highlight this recent interview the real Stephen Colbert did with NPR’s Fresh Air, because he shows yet again how intelligent, empathetic, and savvy is the man behing the blowhard.

    You should listen to the entire thing, but one part that stuck out to me was his take on churches who wish to abolish the law that prohibits religious institutions with a tax-exemption from endorsing or opposing political candidates from the pulpit. The real Colbert believes preachers should be allowed to talk politics, but also sees the problem with it:

    I think they should be able to do it, but I also think that it’s a very dangerous thing to do — not just for our politics, but it’s also dangerous for the faith of people who are exercising that right. Because they seem to think that it’s a one-way membrane — that they’ll get religion into our politics. But they’re ignoring the fact that politics will come right back through that gate onto our religion…

    …And if you actually have a political party that is this religion, or a political party that is that religion, I think that’s a short road to the kind of religious civil war — whether or not it’s actually an armed war — but religious civil war that we fled in Europe. America has avoided that. And I think our politics are so horrible these days. … Why anyone would want that horrible tar on something as fragile as faith is beyond me.”

    It’s a common trope among Christian fundamentalists that religion ought to be inserted into their politics out of an obligation to “fight the good fight” or what have you. As someone with a faith background, I understand the impulse but find it completely wrong-headed and even portentous.

    To illustrate: You show me a fundamentalist Christian who believes his religious dogma ought to purposefully influence his country’s political policies, and I’ll show you a radical Muslim who believes the same thing. I’ll bet you $1 million from Colbert’s SuperPAC that that Christian would likely have a problem with that. (Though most conservative Christians these days don’t seem to have a problem with Mormons.)

    That Christians or any other faith-group would want to see the faith they profess to love so much dragged through the festering mud-swamp that is the American political process in order to prove a point is dismaying and downright depressing. It’s not just your faith you’re messing with; it’s mine and many others’ – the shared property of people who see the Constitutionally-sanctioned separation of church and state as protecting the church, not holding it back.

    So by all means, vote as you please based on your religion, values, favorite color, whatever. But don’t come knocking at the gate wanting your religion to be let in, because I don’t want to know what could be on the other side.

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  • You Can’t Argue With Goodness

    Like many people, I enjoy This American Life. I only started listening regularly about a year and a half ago. One episode from April 2011 called “Know When To Fold ‘Em” in particular struck a chord with me, specifically the first act, which you can listen to here (or read the transcript). It’s a short story from David Dickerson, adapted from his memoir House of Cards, about the evangelical Christianity he embraced, rejected and came to understand anew through an interaction with his born-again father.

    I didn’t relate so much with the author’s life story so much as with his take on religion. Having an anti-religion person seeing it, warts and all, as something that can indeed be a force for good, despite all of the bad press it gets (sometimes rightfully) was an unexpected and encouraging takeaway I got from this story. “You can’t argue with goodness,” Dickerson writes. No matter how hard it’s fought, good wins out.

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  • New Wonders We Will Sing

    Sandra McCracken’s In Feast Or Fallow is a true beauty. This collection of old hymns re-imagined is appropriate for any time and any mood, but especially for Easter. The peril and the promise, the despair and the hope, and the pain and the renewal of this holiday – it’s all in the hymns. The good ones tell Christ’s story from birth to death to rebirth, reminding us of our sin but also of God’s amazing grace and the amazing wonder of creation we witness every spring:

    Look around, every sparrow, every flower,
    All creation sings outloud, of a grand design
    You are small, but you are filled with breath and life
    If you seek, then you will find
    As the Father looks with favor on his child.
    —     “New Wonders”

    Let us continue to rejoice in the new wonders of every day, of every breath we get, and of the grand design that Jesus put into action when he rolled away that stone. Glory hallelujah.

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  • A Genuine Faith

    Rodney Reeves writes on his blog about the “loss by cross” example set by Paul, and how that example is not compatible with American culture. You should read the whole thing, but here’s the kicker:

    “Thinking like an American comes naturally to those of us who live in these United States. Thinking like a follower of Christ is far more challenging. In fact, American ideals often trump our Christian convictions, especially when it comes to living the crucified life. How are we supposed to love our enemies when we’ve been taught to kill them? How can I follow Christ, giving up my rights like he did, when I’ve been trained to protect my rights no matter what? Why does loyalty to America take precedent over loyalty to Christ, that pledging allegiance to a flag is nobler than swearing allegiance to a cross? To what extent is our American citizenship more important than our Christian identity? How many Christians act as if patriotism is just as important as the gospel—or even worse, an expression of the gospel?

    In several ways, the American way of life is at cross purposes with the crucified life; American politics cannot contain Christian faith. For example, politics makes enemies; Christians love enemies. Americans are taught to preserve national and personal interests at all costs. Paul taught his converts to prefer the interests of others. American consumerism is built on the idea that we should always want more. Paul was content with more or less. In light of these stark contrasts, one cannot help but wonder: if we were to live the crucified life like Paul—losing our identity in Christ—would our neighbors be compelled to accuse us of foolishness for forsaking the American way of life?”

    (h/t Jeffrey Overstreet)

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