Instant Replay

I have to admit I’m a fan of instant replay in sports. Tennis has always been a sport involving judicial error but since they’ve gone to instant replay for line calls there are virtually no missed calls any longer. John McEnroe was simply born twenty years too soon. It’s hard to argue with the giant JumboTron showing slow motion replays. Football has also been a sport where officiating errors could change the course of a game. Now? The infamous booth will review just about anything short of the popcorn guy short-changing a fan. Fumble? Well Chet, let’s look at the 247 camera angles we have on this play and we will slow it down and see if Number 34 fumbled before the far left quadrant of his shinbone touched the grass.

Two major sports continue to spurn instant replay: basketball and baseball. Basketball is a super-fast sport played on a relatively short and compact court. Add in the size and athleticism of the players and it’s a wonder any of the calls are correct (one never is any longer; traveling or walking with the ball is a joke in modern basketball. My grandmother could get the ball up the court with the license they have with dribbling and taking steps). Baseball on the other hand is quite slow and is played on a giant field with several umpires. Do they miss calls? Yes, they do. As a Tigers fan I’m still not over the perfect game that was taken away earlier in the year…and yes, my grandmother could’ve made the correct call as it wasn’t even a close play. Baseball needs instant replay. For crying out loud it’s the 21st Century!

Ever wondered what life would be like if we each had our own instant replay official and we could go back and take a second look at decisions and actions? Hmmm. I wonder if that was a mistake? Let’s go to the booth for a second look. It would indeed be wonderful to live a life of fewer poor choices and mistakes, but in the end we would not benefit from daily instant replays. Like them or not, mistakes are teachable episodes that provide gist for character development. If the onus was removed from mistakes and bad judgment calls we would never have to strive to become better persons; life would be a series of do-overs. Plus, what would the Holy Spirit do in our lives? Instant replay would remove the need for an indwelling God in our hearts and lives.

So, in this age of instantaneous replay I vote no for daily life and yes for baseball and basketball. And maybe for chess. Chet, let’s go to the booth for a replay on that last move by Vladimir Checkov. It took him so long to make the move that his opponent is fast asleep. Let’s wake him up and show him the move!

Michael McCullar

The Church of the Immaculate Dysfunction: "To Burn or Not to Burn?"

Reginald Beaufort opened the monthly meeting of the Church Oversight of Ministry Impact Committee (C.O.M.I.C.) with his usual aplomb. Reginald Beaufort’s history in the church founded by his great-great grandmother was well known by everyone who wasn’t suffering from severe tinnitus or profound deafness. Fellow Brothers & Sisters of faith in the Omnipotent, Omniscient & Inerrant Father God, welcome to this historic meeting. Reginald loved large words and imbued a measure of historical importance to each and every meeting. After an extensive reading of the prior meeting’s minutes and the requisite vote he called on his aunt Regina B. V. Cocoletti (she went off the reservation by marrying an Italian exchange student who, sadly, disappeared mysteriously soon after the wedding. Gossip emanating from the Ladies of Lydia Sunday School class suggests he left with a troupe of Roma Gypsies that had camped outside of town that summer). Regina went on to marry a successful taxidermist who, sadly, died in a freak taxidermy accident (everyone thought the bear was dead). His name was Venison, hence the V, but Regina felt that Venison reminded her of deer and deer reminded her of taxidermy, and taxidermy reminded her of…so she shifted back to Cocoletti and placed the V before the C, which reminded her of her favorite rule of spelling.

Regina B. V. Cocoletti read the one item of business : Any ideas for the annual festival? Alice Roberts raised her hand and was acknowledged: I propose we burn that Muslim book and invite the whole town to take part. Alice was a dedicated viewer of cable news shows, especially the Christian news shows on the Jehovah Channel. She especially liked the show with the husband and wife preachers (actually he styled himself as a prophet and his wife as a prophetess), and despite her gnawing feeling that it cost large amounts of money to buy that much make-up and hair spray, she nonetheless sent them a check for $99.00 every month. In return for her consistency she had received a rock from the Holy Land that Jesus might have trod upon, and a prayer rag that was guaranteed to wipe away the deepest stain from a guilty conscience or a cotton shirt. It was the preacher/prophet that gave her the inspiration for the book burning. Regina spoke up first; Do you think that would teach those heathens a lesson? I do, replied Alice. My pastor, well I mean my T.V. pastor, said that the only way to fight the hell fire of Mohammadism is with fire! Alice stood up and shouted, To Hell Fire I Condemn the Koran, Book of the Devil! Unable to stop herself Regina leapt up as well. When she saw that none of the others had moved she sat down in a fluid hurry. Recovering from her unbridled move of vertical support she asked, do we even have a Koran to burn?

The Reverend Martin Barclay, Senior Pastor and sometimes zookeeper of exotic Christians stood to his feet and walked to the front of the room. He addressed the group: With all due respect and love, this idea is up there with some of the worst ideas in the history of time. Alice, your television prophet is a nut who plays off the fears and intrinsic bigotry of people to make money. Does he have a book out on this topic? Alice said, Uh, yes, it’s called Burn Baby Burn: Islam No, Jesus Yes. Reverend Barclay followed up, Alice, how much does he charge for the book? Alice answered, $39.95, but you get a free brick from the church he is building in Palestine. Reverend Barclay decided to reclaim his church and his sanity with a strong stand:

We will not burn a Qur’an for any reason. We will not be swayed by cable television talking heads that pervert the Gospel to make money or to run for public office. Lives are at stake. It’s true that Islam is greatly different from our faith. It’s also true that minority portions of Islam are violent and, that the violence will likely continue. We cannot, however, aid and abet that violence with intentional provocation. The Qur’an may not be holy to us but it is to Muslims. What did Paul teach about meat sacrificed to idols? To make this even easier let’s ask what would Jesus do? Fight fire with fire? No. Fighting fire with fire will ultimately lead to a much bigger fire. Our world does not need another bonfire fueled by hate. We must fight fire with love built on the example of Jesus. This is our only option as people of Jesus.

Alice contritely said I’m sorry pastor. I was wrong. I think I will sell the cable television preacher’s book on EBay and give the money to missions. Regina shouted, How about we burn the t.v. preacher’s book instead? That’ll show him! Pastor Barclay shook his head and thought to himself, and to think I could have been a lawyer.

Michael McCullar

I Know What You're Against, But What Are You For?

For the sake of research I recently viewed or read dozens of media outlets to determine how they treated religion and people of various faith backgrounds. Obviously the majority were focused on the Ground Zero Mosque issues, which has gone from virtually everyone being in favor of to a grand free-for-all incited by arch-conservative bloggers. Lost in the fray is the reality that the Muslims have been in business on that site for two years. Some sites focused on the intra-Muslim violence that is escalating to historic levels in Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa. Muslims have been in a quasi-civil war since soon after the unexpected death of Muhammad. If you’re into math that’s approximately 700 years of in-fighting over which group is truly Muslim. One satirist site offered a video interview of various members of the Arkansas Baptist Church famous for picketing the funerals of soldiers. Their beef isn’t the war in Iraq, it’s homosexuality in America. Go figure.

Needless to say, faith in general was not looking good after my research. It was hard to find a positive story on the web, even on sites dedicated to religion and faith groups. I’m disappointed, but not surprised. Do you know of a major religious group that isn’t fractured, in major flux, about to divide or already divorced? Even Hinduism and Buddhism are splintering! This has to be a sure sign of the apocalypse; or possibly a wake-up call for us, the people of Christianity, to make some positive strides. It’s time for people to know what we are for, not what we are against. If educated, thinking and evaluative Americans hear what Christians are against ad infinitum, but never hear what we are for…our marginalization will continue.

Islam isn’t going away. Whether the mosque/community center is built near Ground Zero or not is not going to effect the growth of Islam here or abroad. America is pluralistic by Constitution and as such won’t have a primary religion promoted by the government. This shouldn’t be a surprise as we broke away from England to get out from under a government sponsored church. The equality movement is growing and like it or not America will be more, not less, inclusive, of people groups. We are also a nation of immigrants and if we closed all borders tomorrow we would nevertheless remain a giant melting pot of peoples. Yell, scream, picket, stew, rant…won’t change any of the above, except for the worse.
What would Jesus do at a time like this? I’m guessing He would be extending a hand of grace and peace to all. From reading the New Testament I surmise he would opt to speak for people and not against them. We would definitely know what He was for, and only in a secondary manner would we know what He was against. Imagine that, people of faith being known more for what they are for than what they are against. This shift alone could change the world as we know it. Oh yeah, and Jesus would do that too…He’d change the world. All in all, Jesus continues to be our best option.

Michael McCullar

The Dude Lives Like Jesus

Dr. C. Louis Perrinjaquet, Doc PJ to his friends, lives in Breckenridge, Colorado and for a few months each year he practices family and sports medicine among the ski-season crowd. I can tell what you’re thinking at this moment: this guy’s a ski bum part-time physician who’s living the high life in a Rocky Mountain paradise. I thought the same thing while reading an article about him in Trail Runner magazine. Actually my exact thoughts after one full paragraph were more like, nut-case-ski-bum-part-time-physician. He’s a genuine piece of eco-work, but not for the reasons you might imagine. Doc PJ doesn’t use heat in his home, takes cold showers to conserve energy, buys giant bags of rice and beans to cut down on packaging, teaches transcendental meditation in his living room and breathes exclusively through his nose. I was with him right up to the point of breathing exclusively through his nose. That must be a TM thing; or possibly something to do with cold showers and not using heat during Colorado winters.

Doc PJ is also an avid trail runner, but again, not for the usual reasons. He trains six days per week to prepare for long stints as a jungle doctor. He treks to Darfur, Honduras, Cameroon, and Haiti to do relief medical work; often traveling on foot carrying a 50-pound pack filled with medical supplies. He has pulled rotted teeth from the mouths of Pygmies and cleaned gunshot wounds in raging war zones. He invests $5,000.00 and treats 5,000 people. By the end of the second paragraph I’m ready to canonize the guy and then I read these lines: “In 1991, PJ was working in Vanatu in the South Pacific, when he saw a diabetic man with no shoes. PJ gave him the shoes off his own feet. And to fill the void, he made a pair of sandals out of tire rubber.” This guy is the MacGyver of international medical relief doctors! He’s my newest hero.

I’d love to report that Doc PJ is a committed Christian who is living out his calling in Christ. Sadly, nothing in the article suggests that faith plays a part in Dr. Perrinjaquet’s unusual life. His life’s motto is placed at the bottom of his e-mails: Life is Bliss! Christian or not, you have to love this guy’s attitude and his passion for making the world a better place. Our world needs more people who live to serve others. Doc PJ may not realize it, but his life’s work is intensely Biblical in its application. Think, Mother Teresa in a pair of handmade sandals made of worn out automobile tires. This is the kind of life Jesus died to provide for us: others first, meeting the needs of the oppressed, orphaned, and sick, and being the living embodiment of Christ. Christian or not, the dude’s a role model for us.

Michael McCullar

An Islamic Bonfire?

A church in Florida is planning a Qur’an burning. I can’t remember the last time I went to an old fashioned burning of any type. As a kid I read about Christians burning Beatles music after John Lennon stated that people placed the Beatles above Jesus. Rather than participating I wanted to sneak in and save as many of the records as possible. My allowance was a pittance and purchasing 45’s wiped me out every two weeks. I’ve always been a big fan of marshmallow roasting and weenie-roasts but a Qur’an burning? Why in the world would a group of Florida Christians hold a bonfire for Muslim holy books? Apparently because their pastor told them to do so. He is a believer than Islam is a religion of Satan and as such the Qur’an should be burned.

I believe this pastor (our kind can be a looney lot) is going about this in the wrong way. If he asked me, which he won’t, I would suggest he read, rather than set fire to, the Qur’an. Then I would suggest that he reread the New Testament, especially the parts about Jesus, and reassess his strategies. If he did this he might come away with a different plan of action for dealing with Islam. It is true that Islam is patently non-Christian. Islam sees Jesus as the second greatest prophet and an all around talented guy; but not God Incarnate. Islam is a religion of works and must-do’s, and Allah is capricious and far away. Islam is both a religion of peace and violence due to the Qur’an being written in a longest to shortest chapter form and utilizing abrogation at its core. The Qur’an is a list of revelations received by Muhammad over many years. These revelations were progressive and whenever a later revelation conflicted with an earlier one, the initial writing was abrogated in favor of the latest. The confusing part is determining the verses that have been abrogated. None of the abrogated verses were removed; so many conflicting revelations are included. This is the reason why Islam can be simultaneously hailed as being both peaceful and violence-prone.

O.K., so Islam is confusing, can be violent with sanction and doesn’t see Jesus as God. Color me a heretic and don’t sign me up. I am a follower of Jesus and I reject the Qur’an as being my holy book, but never in a million years would I take part in a Qur’an burning. If Christians want to engage in a witness to Muslims they must first make sure they are doing so in a Christian manner. Simply rereading the life and teachings of Jesus will provide a plan for both witness and dialogue. Nowhere in the New Testament does it teach to demean and do harm to another religion; yet Christians have used Scripture as justification for the Crusades and for burning people at the stake. Where exactly is that verse in Matthew? This Florida pastor should stop seeking publicity and reread his Bible. If he did he would save the matches, the O-Zone and, if it’s not too late, his standing as a witness of Jesus Christ. Burn one Qur’an and your witness goes up in flames as well.

Michael McCullar

Lightning Strikes Jesus!

There are many scary and alarming things happening around the world. Daily life continues to get worse in Haiti. The oil spill is now well beyond a spill; dropping a glass of milk is a spill; this is an out of control underwater volcano of crude oil. The Gaza situation is a nightmare with no lasting answers in sight. The economy continues to resemble a theme park roller-coaster ride. Could things get worse? What’s next? Well, Jesus was struck by lightning.

A church in Ohio erected a six-story statue of Jesus alongside a major freeway. During a thunderstorm a bolt of lightning struck the statue and brought it down. The statue broke in several places, caught fire and in the end, fell to the ground. I bet the fire department had fun with that call: All units. We have a code seventeen at this address. Lightning strike and now a six-story unit is on fire. Hold all units. Jesus is on fire. Negative on the unit. It’s confirmed. Jesus is on fire.

The church was also likely flummoxed at this unique turn of events. That statue was their claim to fame. It was their landmark. They probably never imagined it would also function as a lightning rod. So what’s worse on the global scale? Haiti? An oily Gulf Coast? The Humpty-Dumptyization of Jesus’ statue? I’m going with the fragile environment, the eco-systems of the Gulf and the actual people of Haiti. People will disagree with me on this and that’s fine. Pat Robertson is likely already on sight filming a show where he blames Satan for this blatant attack on Jesus. Someone else will lay the blame on homosexuals; others will cite illegal immigration and the lack of Ten Commandments displays across Ohio. People in general feel the need to fix blame in order to make sense of it all. This happens after every natural disaster. Humans need a concrete handle on abstract events.
So what would Jesus say about this? What would Jesus cite as being the worst event? For my money it would be anything other than the statue crashing and burning. The Biblical Jesus would be grieving over the loss of Creation and for the suffering children of Haiti. That Jesus would also be the first to say that storms are part of Creation’s work and storms bring destruction. Lightning is as much a part of life as oxygen; and both were products of God’s earliest work. Would Jesus be upset over the statue’s demise? Who knows? The better question is this: What does today’s world need more: A six-story statue of Jesus or for the followers of Jesus to live elevated lives? That question shouldn’t be hard to answer, even on a stormy day.

Michael McCullar

"Awful" Is Relative

Being involved in relief and missions work in Haiti is both a good and a bad thing. Haiti is the kind of place that elicits travel warnings from countries like ours. Even before the earthquake people were warned about traveling there for a variety of reasons. The H.I.V. rate in Haiti is very high, as is the child mortality rate. Clean water is scarce and jobs even more so. Haiti is a place best described as simply awful. To drive through Port-Au-Prince is to be heartbroken as one sees humanity at its worst subsistence levels. It only takes one orphaned, homeless child living in a hole left by collapsed rubble to make you cry.

On the other hand Haiti is a great place to practice Christianity. Baptist churches are quite prominent in Haiti and Baptists have been at the forefront of relief work in the stricken areas. I have to say that working and living amongst Haitians was an exhilarating experience. To have the privilege of providing medicines and basic life supplies to people who might otherwise die is one of life’s few holy ground moments. To share this experience with fellow church members was also special, as was being able to tell those being helped that a church in the U.S. cares deeply for you. Sadly, however, we left Haiti only microscopically better than we found it. In reality Haiti remains a truly awful place. The majority of Americans would have trouble assimilating the realities faced by Haitians in simply trying to stay alive from one day to the next. It’s such a foreign concept to us that it might as well be an episode of the Twilight Zone. One has to see it to adequately believe it.

Haiti isn’t alone as being an awful place. Right now the Gulf Coast of the United States is an awful place. Crude oil being pumped directly into the ocean is causing long lasting damage to the already fragile eco-systems and shorelines. It may take decades to undo all of the damage being done, not to mention the price tag that will total in the billions of dollars (which will be passed down to consumers as no corporate jets will be lost due to the unfortunate oil spill). There are plenty of other awful places as well; Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Egypt, India, North Korea, Singapore, Chile…and the list could go on. Awful is relative and no one place or people group has cornered that market.

So, how should we deal with this awfulness? As Christians we cannot act as if it doesn’t exist; nor can we lay it off on the people who are suffering. Pat Robertson’s verbalized stupidity that Haiti made a pact with the devil and as a result received a well-deserved earthquake is beyond the pale. There is voodoo in Haiti. I’ve heard the drums and the chants. I have also seen people praising God and going without food in order to take care of an orphan. Jesus never laid blame on those who were suffering. Awful was the reason Jesus spent so much time with the sick and afflicted. Blame, no. Action, yes. Action is the only weapon Christians have against awful. Pray, give and go are three words that Christians in the United States should take to heart. Everyone can pray; many can give to support life-saving work and ministries already in place in most of the world’s truly awful areas; others can take the time and expense to go and help out in person.

Awful is a relative term that doesn’t have to define large chunks of our world. If we all do our part awful could become obsolete. Then we could move to better, and beyond. I’m convinced this is what Jesus would do.

Michael McCullar