Green Jello Hotdish

This is an excerpt from an e-mail I sent to my parents and some friends, reflecting on my day. I started the day teaching some communication workshops at a youth leadership training event at a church in the synod. The topic of the day was utilizing effective online community to build ministries. (I’ve edited the excerpt to protect identities, and removed some of my “artistic flair” just for job security!)

A little background on the Episcopal connection. Today was the investiture (”installation”) of the Most Rev. Katharine Jefforts Schori as the 26th Presiding Bishop. It is the first time in history that a member church of the Anglican Communion has installed a woman as its Presiding Bishop, Chief Pastor, and Primate. I’ll post more about that later.

Today’s teaching was interesting. First with the youth leaders — so much fun. This one lady hit it on the head in the large group when the leader was discussing e-groups and effective Web tools. He had planned this huge presentation, and then told me, “Oh, feel free to jump in with examples of how others are doing this as I’m talking.” He’s a nice guy. He was talking about how the group should imagine what it would look like to share our resource online, to have a Web site devoted to youth ministry where anyone could upload files, share ideas, and come together in a community.

Uh, we already have that. The concept is older than the Internet. We’ve had that for a while now. It was one of the first things I set up.

So I put it up on the screen, people were looking at it, and people thought that the only thing we had was an e-mail group. It’s SO frustrating!

So he went further in their brainstorming, and people came up with a lot of good ideas — not new ideas, mind you, nor things that are really intuitive — but good ideas. Then he was looking to get people together to form a committee (can you feel the blood pressure rising?) so they could “take this slowly to do it right.”

Then this lady, out of nowhere, interrupts him and says something like (seriously, it was profound, I wish I remembered it word-for-word because it hit the nail on the head), “I’m sorry, but I disagree with that. When you look at places like the Willow Creek Association who are getting millions of hits on their Web site a day, who monopolize the media, who have seemingly unlimited resources at their disposal and are attracting people with their cheap, shallow theology… the ELCA has missed the boat. Entirely. We do need to do this now. We need to do this yesterday. We need to do this five, ten years ago.”

What upset me wasn’t what she said, because it’s what I’ve been SAYING since I started. It’s that, in typical Lutheran fashion, nobody said “that’s right.” Nobody clapped. It was just a desire to “move on” to something else.

So after that, I transitioned my lesson plan into Google Groups (I was originally going to talk about MySpace). And sure enough, the question came up, that churches had to be cautious using this because it “validates” all the bad uses of the Internet.

I almost wanted to lose it. I’m so sick — SO sick — of the church not doing anything because either a committee has to be formed and nothing gets done, or because the church refuses to get involved in something until it’s too late. It’s no wonder that we’re losing members — or that the mainline church is losing members while the evangelicals are growing. Their theology, yes, is shallow, individualistic, decision-based, and flawed. But they’re the ones who are MEETING PEOPLE WHERE THEY ARE. They’re the ones who are embracing the media, who embrace the Internet and technology to a nauseating degree. They’re the ones who, truthfully, pioneer accessible worship and structures, with their auditorium-style sanctuaries, big-screen lyrics, and video projection of speakers.

And what do we do? We argue that the new hymnal is red, because the old hymnal was red.

At least the Episcopal Church stood out on a limb today and pissed people off. They took a stand. Moderates don’t accomplish anything but a false sense of security. I don’t agree with conservatives, but at least they push the envelope and get people talking. I agree with liberals, and they push the envelope and get people talking.

I’ve never been so excited for my own generation than when I talk with kids from Carthage who have never voted in their lives, and during a midterm election, they’re asking how to register to vote and making sure that they’re able to vote on Tuesday. I’ve never been so excited for my own generation than when I see the reports that this could be the highest voter turnout from 18-24-year-olds since the voting age was lowered in the 1972.

I’ve never been so excited than today, when I hear youth talk about how they’ve joined MySpace, Facebook, and other social networking groups that are conducted by Campus Crucade, InterVarsity, Willow Creek/Elmbrook, and other fundamentalist evangelical organizations, and watch leadership squirm and feel uncomfortable in their chairs as they fear what is going to happen to our church and realize they’ve missed the boat.

There’s a new Web site on the block, TheChurchYouKnow.com, with parodies of the familiar public service advertisements on NBC.

While I might not agree with some of the perspectives therein, staunch traditionalism and all, I think there’s a good place there for discussion. Like whether or not Jesus would buy a Hummer instead of ministering to the poor.

A man stormed a one-room Amish schoolhouse outside of Lancaster, PA today, killing three young girls execution-style. In an unrelated incident, two Las Vegas schools locked down their campuses today on reports of a gun-toting teenager.

Oh, but the answer to violence in America… more violence.

Here in Wisconsin, we’ve had two school violence incidents already this year; a foiled plot in Green Bay, and the senseless killing of a principal outside of Madison. The rhetoric is back: save the children. Let teachers carry guns. Put metal detectors in place.

But who is going to protect the children from the same rhetoric? Or touchy congressmen in Washington? Or school buildings in such poor physical condition if they were used for any other purpose they would be condemned? Or textbooks and materials that still refer to the Soviet Union?

As planned, I saw the movie Jesus Camp last night with Chris and Bryan. The best summation I can provide is from Chris himself:

That is the scariest movie I have seen in a long time.

The reviews simply don’t do this movie justice. One knows it’s a good, unbiased documentary when the reviews are a mixed bag: those involved with the actions call it a good film, in this case, claiming the film will change the hearts and minds of Americans to radically follow Christ, and those avoiding the actions say the same, claiming the film will finally bring to light what the evangelical, charismatic, pentecostal movement is doing.

What is most repulsive to me, however, is how indoctrinated these kids are being to the radically anti-family, anti-values, anti-liberty platform of the Republican Party. At one point in the movie, a cardboard cutout of President Bush is brought in, and the kids kneel at his feet to call upon him to continue the “good work” he is doing. (One can only assume they’re not talking about election fraud, misclaims about WMD in Iraq, or the inability to read children’s books right-side-up.)

Ted Haggard, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, is preaching in his home congregation in Colorado Springs at the end of the movie. He takes a couple of moments to be candid with the filming crew following the service, and expresses his joy at the statistics. And the statistics are staggering: every two days, a new megachurch is planted in the United States. The evangelical movement claims 25 percent of the U.S. population. What the evangelicals want, the evangelicals get, because they have the critical mass necessary to steer this entire country.

But possibly even more upsetting is what comes next; the praying and speaking in tongues calling for abortion to be overturned. These kids are as young as five, far too young to have an understanding of what the birds and bees are, let alone what abortion consists of. For a group of people to be having them dress up, standing at the foot of federal buildings in Washington is simply inappropriate. How is this showing family values? How is this letting kids be kids? At five, I was playing with rocks and sticks. Strike that — I’m not sure if I even graduated to rocks quite yet. I wasn’t protesting. I didn’t have any idea of what the government was. I knew there was a guy named President Bush (the other one) and there was a place called Iraq (the first time) and I knew my aunt was going there and I was excited because then we got to babysit her cat. I didn’t have a clue.

Oh, yes, Iraq. Didn’t come up once in the movie as being a mistake, as being contrary to God’s word of peace and justice. It was George Bush is wonderful, the Congress is now wonderful, America is turning from its demonic ways, and the separation of church and state has lost its time because it allows for a diversity of opinion and has destroyed itself because the evangelicals have the truth.

But truthfully, my favorite part of the movie, was when this ten-year-old girl was approaching African American strangers in the park and asking them if they were sure they would go to heaven when they died. They assured her they did, but she wasn’t satisfied with their answers. Finally, she walks away, announcing to the kids who were with her, “I think they were Muslim.”

If you can watch this and not be angry, not be upset, not be outraged, then you are a better person than myself.

(My personal favorite quote is toward the begining of the trailer, when the young boy says he accepted Christ at the age of five because he “wanted more out of life.” Of course he wanted more out of life. He was five.)

Doctrinal differences about the justification by grace through faith, not by works aside… this is scary stuff! The movie comes to Chicagoland theaters tomorrow. I’ll be attending, along with a small group from Carthage. Check back for a full review, but in the meantime, check out what Nick Coleman of the Minneapolis StarTribune had to say.

It’s not clear who the enemies are, but we know who they aren’t: There’s a scene showing the kids praying before a cardboard cut-out of President George W. Bush.

If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.