Chuck Norris, for those of you who don’t know, will roundhouse kick you just because he can.

If I were a celebrity, I would probably avoid endorsing any political candidate. I’ve gotten away from the political blogging I used to wallow in many years ago because I grew weary of fleas and yappy dogs. Such a vast amount much bickering for a bunch of candidates who can’t deliver.

This election, in particular, is disappointing. I’m just not impressed with the field of viable candidates, and I especially have some serious problems with a guy who easily talks but doesn’t walk, saying he supports family values with one hand while unable to keep up with all the divorce papers he has to sign with the other.

I think that matters.

That, and the name Newt. It makes me think of non-presidential aspirations.

“With great power comes great responsibility.”
– Uncle Ben, from Spiderman, as opposed to Uncle Tom 

Newt ought to understand that with this endorsement comes great responsibility. Chuck Norris, after all, will kick your ass.

I don’t think I’d ever want Chuck Norris to endorse me. In fact, I’d hope against hope that he didn’t know I existed. If I don’t exist, he can’t roundhouse kick me into actual non-existence. Additionally, I will not express overt or official public distaste for Norris’ endorsement of Newt out of abject fear of being roundhouse kicked.

I emailed the organization, asking if there was any way I could possibly attend. “I will pay you the $19 just to hear him,” I said. “I don’t need any food.” And then I asked, “Could I just stand in the back of the room? I will be quiet.”

The response was polite.

“I’m so sorry, but we will not be able to allow anyone to stand in the back of the room.”

I understand, I guess. Fire codes. Safety. Liability. Legal limits. Policy. Crowd control. Noise and distraction. Organizational control. Planning. Financial reasons. It’s a banquet, and not something free. It’s a planned event, with limited seating. They likely paid to have Zacharias come and chose to put it in a banquet setting and can’t mishandle that investment.

You know what else is happening this Saturday night?

The last day of the Eric Sevareid symposium, during which Dan Rather and Nick Clooney (father of actor George Clooney) will speak. This event is free, and in a large auditorium with ample space for all who would want to come.

I am far more interested in hearing what Zacharias has to say, yet I can’t get in to hear this very intelligent man of God pay homage to Christ because there is no more room. However, for free, I could attend the event at the college in a large auditorium and listen to men pay homage to another man. Somehow, the secular is operating on a “come unto me” and the sacred is operating using Ticketmaster’s playbook. Our model is out of whack, yet we do not question it.

“It is a sad thing when the secular is free and the sacred requires reservations,” I responded back in an email. “It is unfortunate that this caliber of a speaker could not have been shared more broadly in this community, rather than limited in a banquet/ticket setting. It could have been a blessing instead of being exclusive.”

I am aware of the common sense reality of how things work, of public dollars and grant funds and private organizations and fundraising. Someone is paying for both events. Evangelists need money to live. If it is a banquet, you need to cover the food costs. I understand these logistical issues.

Yet, I am uneasy.

From where does Zacharias’ gifts and knowledge come? Was it given out freely? Why do we put price tags on annointed speakers, blessed by God, to raise funds or bring attention to our organization? Is this the intention of the gift? Is this the great commission?

…we forget that the storehouse is his already…

Funds for God’s kingdom, yes, but they were his funds anyway. He can make the rocks cry out, and he can make the closed wallets open. He can get things done; he just wants to give us the opportunity to give. Because we forget that the storehouse is his already, we find ways to get people to give — gimmicks, conventions, tournaments, and banquets. Yes, his gifts, his funds, sure, but in some capitalistic ye-of-little-faith way, we managed to insert exclusion in there. The money and event may be for a good cause, and the hearts and effort behind it may be noble, but do we stop to question our model? Why do we turn ministry into privilege, tickets, and money? I think of the ads in Christian magazines for conferences and special events, all with registration fees, requirements, and reservations… reservations?

To hear the word of God preached?

“I have a message from God, some teaching for you. Buy a ticket and come to my event and I will tell you what it is. Act now before it fills up.”

Yes, I have reservations. I have many reservations.

Something inside me turns in disgust at this, as I think of stories of crowds pressing in, of people cutting holes in the roof to get access to Jesus, of Jesus feeding the five thousand, of Jesus telling the disciples to back off and let the children come, of a banquet of a very different sort, and of a woman so desperate that she sneaked in and touched the hem of Jesus’ garment because she was hungry for a miracle and wouldn’t let a crowd stop her.

Part of me wants to go and stand in the back anyway. I want these nice, Christian people to come up to me and kick me out and say they can’t have me listening to the preaching because I didn’t buy a ticket and it’s against the rules. Not out of spite do I want to do this — I can honestly say that — but I want to see if that’s really where we’re at: no ticket, no chair, no way.

On the other hand, perhaps I should just follow the rules, accept that I just didn’t get registered in time, and go to a movie instead. Maybe it was God’s will that I skip Zacharias and take in Resident Evil: Afterlife. Plenty of tickets available for that show.

We already make it easy for the world to not hear the Gospel through our incongruent lives. Now we sell tickets to limit those who would want to hear.

It is little wonder there are few truly miraculous miracles seen in our western church today. Jesus wouldn’t have to feed the five thousand because that kind of crowd wouldn’t have been allowed in without a disciple making sure enough food and space was on hand. We plan according to what we have resources for, only as much as we can control, and only as much as makes sense. No miracle needed. God need not apply.

That’s our model.

As far as I’m concerned, those tickets were sold out long ago.

That would be agape, as in amazement, not agape, as in love.

Repeatedly, in discussing Christianity with Hitchens (who is an atheist), she could only, at best, describe herself as a person of faith.

Person of faith?

What the hell does that mean?

That’s a meaningless statement if I’ve ever heard one. Anyone who flies on a commercial airliner is a person of faith. Anyone who eats at a public restaurant is a person of faith.

I’m not an atheist, but at least Hitchens didn’t sound like a dumbass. Sewell, on the other hand, completely deserved Hitchens’ responses to her inane questions of nothing, which were less questions and more an attempt to garner respect by downplaying her faith as a person of faith. She barely gets into the interview before making sure she ascertains her liberal and intellectual “faith” street cred:

Sewell: The religion you cite in your book is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make and distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?

Hitchens: I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.

Sewell: Let me go someplace else. When I was in seminary I was particularly drawn to the work of theologian Paul Tillich. He shocked people by describing the traditional God—as you might as a matter of fact—as, “an invincible tyrant.” For Tillich, God is “the ground of being.” It’s his response to, say, Freud’s belief that religion is mere wish fulfillment and comes from the humans’ fear of death. What do you think of Tillich’s concept of God?”

Hitchens: I would classify that under the heading of “statements that have no meaning—at all.” Christianity, remember, is really founded by St. Paul, not by Jesus. Paul says, very clearly, that if it is not true that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, then we the Christians are of all people the most unhappy. If none of that’s true, and you seem to say it isn’t, I have no quarrel with you. You’re not going to come to my door trying convince me either. Nor are you trying to get a tax break from the government. Nor are you trying to have it taught to my children in school. If all Christians were like you I wouldn’t have to write the book.

Sewell later attempts to explain her understanding and belief in God to Hitchens:

Sewell: God is a mystery to me. I choose to believe because—and this is a very practical thing for me—I seem to live with more integrity when I find myself accountable to something larger than myself. That thing larger than myself, I call God, but it’s a metaphor. That God is an emptiness out of which everything comes. Perhaps I would say “ reality” or “what is” because we’re trying to describe the infinite with language of the finite. My faith is that I put all that I am and all that I have on the line for that which I do not know.

Sewell’s attempts to explain God could have applied to a cheeseburger, their tenable value being that low. She seemed more intent on getting Hitchens to agree that the stories of the Bible were a valuable metaphor than anything else.

Valuable metaphor?

Marvel comic books contain valuable metaphors. You don’t see me setting up an altar to Spidey.

As Paul said in 1 Corinthians, and as Hitchens succinctly pointed out to Person-of-Faith Sewell, if you call yourself a Christian and don’t believe, at the very least, that Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead, you are to be pitied above all others. Sewell is pitiable; she has faith in metaphor and vagueness and  non-offense and the historical value of her grandma’s Bible, but not in Christ.

Look, if I’m going to call myself a Christian, I’m going to believe it. I’m going to believe it an not be embarrassed. Otherwise, I’m going to line up with Hitchens and his atheism, and not be pathetic in my worship of valuable metaphors. At least he’s not attempting to straddle the fence.

They might as well have had a Smurf interview Hitchens. The questions would have carried the same religious clarity and Christian conviction, except without the pretension in describing a belief in Papa Smurf.

I don’t remember much about the drawing, other than the request was something with the Beatles.

What I ended up doing, as you can see, is a caricature, using charcoal, of McCartney, Lennon, Harrison, and Starr. I then added, in no particular order, a collection of song lyrics in the area of where their torsos would be.

The secret, is of course, a slight addition of a non-lyric; it’s not hard to spot.

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Julie’s Lost Art: If you happen to have one of my early artworks, I’d love to get a decent digital photo of it, emailed to me. I can think of a couple, specifically, that I’d love to get a photo of:

• a caricatured version of “American Gothic”
• a mixed-media painting of greyhounds running (a rather long painting)
• a triptych painting of greyhounds and a starry sky (was sold/auctioned at Dewey Beach greyhound event in ’03 or ’04, I think)
• and a mixed media painting of fish (was sold to a co-worker at Nodak Mutual Insurance Co. in Fargo; her name was Sheila…?)

Much of these were created before the advent of widespread digital camera and/or scanner use, and I didn’t always take a print photograph.

“I’m with Coco” poster seen in downtown Bismarck gift store on my walk home from work today.

Are you with Coco?