In his sermon this past Sunday at Pasadena Covenant Church, Leslie Allen made an observation that American culture doesn’t like fear and the Church has assimilated to this view. Thus, we make God the personification of niceness. We dismiss whole sections of the Bible because they deal with the reality of fear in our lives in ways that do not comfort us.

The statement that we avoid parts of the Bible got me thinking about what I tend to avoid in the Bible and I realized I’m a pretty reactionary reader. Largely, I react against interpretations I used to hold but don’t hold now, heated debates I don’t want to enter, or different camps with whom I disagree who have made these texts central to their identities. Our Bible study is going through Genesis and this week we read Genesis 19, or the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. We let the story amaze us with its richness and sadness. We realized many of the arguments and counterarguments we hear regarding the text do not do justice to the narrative. But before Sunday night, I would have easily said that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah was a text I would rather avoid—I called it a landmine—because of the way I have heard some preachers use it in a, well, hellfire and brimstone manner.

What other texts do I avoid? I’ve avoided Genesis 1-2 because I’m tired of the creationism/evolution debate. I’ve abdicated Revelation to the Left Behind and Hal Lindsey eschatologies. I read The Late, Great Planet Earth in high school and believed its interpretation of Scripture and history for a few months, but I now reject it. I skip over parts of 1 Corinthians because of the claims some charismatic brothers and sisters have staked. I grow nervous when I hear people preaching on giving and tithing or divine blessing because of the crap (and I do mean crap) coming from the prosperity gospel preachers.

Look at the Bible I’m left with if I follow this reactionary reading program. The TTRV (Tyler’s Truncated Reactionary Version) says little about God’s creative activities, interaction with unjust societies, expectations of what we are to do with our resources and money, how the Holy Spirit empowers the Church, how God cares and blesses, or that there is an ultimate purpose to history.

I would love to be able to take an appreciative approach to many of the interpretations of Scripture that make me bristle. Most days I say why bother and then go read the texts that haven’t been tainted for me. Some days I feel like proclaiming as Bono does at the opening of “Helter Skelter” on the album Rattle and Hum, “This song Charles Manson stole from The Beatles; we’re stealing it back.”

The belief that we have mastered certain texts so that we think there is nothing new to learn from them, is perhaps just as harmful, but that is for another post.

My review of Christopher Nolan’s latest take on Batman, The Dark Knight can be read here. The brief summary is that I liked it. A lot.

I regularly watch Matt Harding’s videos of himself dancing in front of various locales around the world. Seeing his joyous dancing reminds me that we live in a magical world full of wonder and beauty. His inclusion of so many people in his most recent video (the second one below) shows that humanity itself is as much a part of the beauty of this world as any rock formation or shoreline. If I had to pick one thing from the internet and send it into space to communicate with extra terrestrials, it might be one of these videos. In an interview he did with NPR.org, Harding describes the videos as “humanist propaganda,” but I find that they draw me into worship and in seeing God’s fingerprint on all creation.

You can read his story at his web site, Where The Hell Is Matt?

On July 3, 2008, the Fresno Bee ran an article about kids of different faiths using their time and money to help others. The story, “Good Guys,” by Ron Orozco highlights, amongst other kids, my nephew Joshua.

They are doing a lot of good things for others, driven by loved ones setting good examples—and by their faith.

Joshua, Shriya, Patrick, Alexandra and Faisal come from homes practicing Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism or Islam. And despite other differences, the world’s religions share common teachings on caring for and helping others, particularly the disadvantaged….

Joshua Watson, 5, earns quarters for feeding the family’s dogs, Leia and Lucy, and the cat, Mazie, and for helping in grandmother Pam Watson’s tomato garden at their Clovis home. But he never spends anything.

“He’s a good little boy,” Watson says.

Instead, he puts the quarters in paper rolls and donates them every Sunday at Quail Lake Community Church in Clovis, an evangelical congregation where he and his grandmother worship.

The quarters always go to Littlest Angels, a ministry that collects or buys new clothing, caps, booties, blankets and accessories for newborns who might not otherwise receive them. Joshua will enter kindergarten at Quail Lake Elementary School in August.

“He’s thinking outside of the box so early,” says Kim Espinosa, the church’s Littlest Angels coordinator. “He can become a warrior for God.”

There are a couple of reasons motivating Joshua. His grandmother saves money and gives it at church. He also listens to church members attending a weekly Bible study in their home and talking about the New Testament book of James 2, which is about faith and deeds.

Joshua also is aware of a family tragedy. His mother lost a baby girl in the seventh month of pregnancy. Pam Watson says: “He talks a lot about having a sister, Emily, in heaven.”

This story reminds me of the work Interfaith Youth Core does. Most religions have service for others at the core of their ethical practices. IFYC asks can greater religious cooperation occur around that shared value of service? Can we learn more about our faith and the faiths of others as we serve people who need help? The kids in Orozco’s story aren’t in discussion groups together, but I hope that this early service shapes them profoundly and creates an appreciation that other religions also value service. I hope that my nephew doesn’t just learn that Christians are called to help others, but that other religions call their members to service, and that he can learn to work alongside those religions in helping newborns, the sick, the hungry, and creation.

I posted my review of Pixar’s latest film, Wall-E over on my arts blog. You can read it here.