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A Monday Times of London article is full of revelations that haven’t appeared anywhere else – which may mean the paper has several big scoops, or may mean what they’re reporting isn’t right at all. But in any case, the paper says:

• The bus driver who was transporting the Koreans when the Taliban attacked has been arrested and is accused of tipping the kidnappers.
• The Korean government has stopped at least two military operations intended to free the Christian aid worker hostages being held hostage by members of the Taliban.
• One of the planned military operations would have involved kidnapping family members of the kidnappers “as a way of applying pressure.” An unnamed “senior intelligence source” told the paper, “We know who the Taleban commanders are and we wanted to arrest their families but the Koreans wouldn’t let us.”

It’s hard to imagine, even if kidnapping innocents to secure the release of the aid workers had “worked,” that the Christian aid workers would be very pleased. It’s hard to imagine Paul writing to the Corinthians, “When persecuted, we persecute; when kidnapped, we kidnap…”

Andrew Paquin is executive director of the 10/10 Project, a Colorado-based international development and advocacy organization focusing on Africa. He was also professor of global studies at Colorado Christian University, and last year was named faculty member of the year. (He also wrote a 2006 op-ed for Christianity Today on Saddleback Church’s PEACE plan.)

Monday’s Rocky Mountain News reports that CCU fired Paquin “amid concerns that his lessons were too radical and undermined the school’s commitment to the free enterprise system.” (No one at the school has tenure.)

School president Bill Armstrong wouldn’t talk about Paquin’s case in specific, but emphasized the school’s commitment to capitalism. “What the university stands for, among other things, is free markets,” he explained. He pointed to the school’s recently adopted “strategic objectives,” which include a commitment to “impact our culture in support of traditional family values, sanctity of life, compassion for the poor, Biblical view of human nature, limited government, personal freedom, free markets, natural law, original intent of constitution and Western civilization.”

Paquin told the paper he likes capitalism. The 10/10 Project, in fact, largely focuses on microenterprise. Capitalism, he says, has “obviously been one of the greatest wealth generators in the world. But I’d stop short of deifying it.”

Paquin doesn’t seem interested in returning to CCU, though some students are circulatingpetitions.

I hope we’ll hear more, because the story seems very incomplete. The News article suggests that Paquin was fired because he assigned books by Jim Wallis and Peter Singer, but it’s not at all clear that Paquin actually endorsed the books, and the college library carries many books by both Wallis and Singer. Armstrong insists that it’s okay to teach about alternative viewpoints, so long as they’re not endorsed, but it’s not evident that Armstrong takes issue with Wallis.

One also wonders about how to read, define, and enforce those strategic objectives. Does Armstrong’s support of a constitutional amendment banning “desecration” of the U.S. flag violate the school’s commitment to “limited government,” for example? As one often wonders in these stories of lines in the sand, How far is too far?

(I’ve earlierposted on whether there is an “evangelical view of economics.”)

Amid the debate over Amnesty International‘s policyonabortion, the “diplomatic editor” for the London Independent notes that the human rights organization was largely inspired to create its policy because of the mass rapes in Darfur, Sudan. But would Amnesty agree with the editor, Anne Penketh, in her jaw-dropping assertion that “To allow the victims of mass rape to give birth is arguably tantamount to complicity in genocide“?

• The Association of Theological Schools has given Asbury Theological Seminary until 2009 to resolve governance problems or risk losing accreditation. After visiting the school, the association concluded that Asbury “does not adequately define or implement the roles, responsibilities, and structure of administrators and faculty in governance and administration.” A student filed a complaint after Asbury’s board forced Jeffrey Greenway to resign as president in October 2006. An Asbury spokesperson said the association has helped the seminary “to focus and clarify a specific area of governance that the seminary will now be able to strengthen.” Asbury said the process “is similar to the kind of periodic review and action all seminaries undergo comprehensively at least once every 10 years.”

• A California appeals courts reversed a lower-court ruling that had allowed three Episcopal churches to retain their property after leaving the denomination in 2004. The conservative churches in North Hollywood, Newport Beach, and Long Beach have joined the Anglican Province of Uganda. Eric Sohlgren, lead lawyer for the three churches, criticized the July reversal, arguing, “What the court said here was that if a hierarchical church wants to take control of local church property, all it has to do is pass a rule.” Churches in Virginia are locked in a similar struggle with the Episcopal Church.

• Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison filed 19 misdemeanor charges against George Tiller, a Wichita doctor who performs late-term abortions. Morrison alleges that Tiller broke a Kansas law by procuring second opinions from a doctor who has financial ties to him. Tiller contributed thousands of dollars in 2006 to Morrison’s successful campaign against Phil Kline, the previous attorney general who had targeted Tiller for prosecution.

Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

Christianity Today reported on Asbury‘s problems in the wake of Greenway’s resignation earlier this year.

Bible Belt Blogger Frank Lockwood posted a memo from Asbury’s president saying that the seminary’s accreditation was not threatened after Association of Theological Schools commissioners visited the school.

News on the California appeals court’s ruling includes:

Diocese wins another round in legal battle | The L.A. Episcopal district, not a breakaway congregation, owns that parish’s property, says a judge, citing an appellate court precedent. (The Los Angeles Times)

Church ordered to forfeit property | Panel rules the Episcopal Diocese of L.A. has the right to claim St. James’ property as a result of its split from the diocese. (The Daily Pilot, Costa Mesa, CA)

Church Dissidents Lose Property Appeal | Three congregations that broke away from the Episcopal Church over the appointment of a gay bishop are not entitled to property claimed by the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, a California appeals court has ruled. (The New York Times)

Local church case echoes Calif. suit | Attorneys in Episcopal split disagree on influence (The Gazette, Colorado Springs)

Further coverage of Anglican division is available on our site.

Weblog linked to news about the Kansas abortion battle as outgoing attorney general Phil Kline’s cases against Tiller were tossed.

Tiller has pleaded not guilty to the current misdemeanor charges, and a judge known for his pro-life stance was assigned to the case.

Conservatively, estimating 12.5 cries per day per toddler and 15 cries per day per new baby, I've heard at least 20,050 child cries since June 2005.

Sometimes it's just a pinched finger here or an empty tummy there, but viewed all together, the cries really add up. Yesterday I heard a cry like no other.

There have been copious loose stools around my house lately (which has you thinking this is either evidence of my tendency to release too much information or a cheap attention-grabber, but it's essential to the story I'm about to tell).

Yesterday morning I found a just-awakened Wesley, one of my two-year-old twins, awash in a crib of poo. He cried because it burned, but even after I cleaned him up and applied tenderizer to the raw meat that his inner thighs had become, he continued to cry. He tried to hide his body from me and avoided eye contact; it was the first time I have seen him experience what I believe was shame. It's one thing to do something wrong, like throw a toy at someone's head, look to mommy for punishment, and then cry in the time-out chair. It's another thing to be physically hurt and wail. It's yet another thing—shame—to realize that something has gone wrong, you did it, you wish you hadn't done it, and you'd like to hide it but can't.

My doctorate is in anthropology, not child development theory, but it seems to me that potty training is a stage of immense psychological proportions. I'd even argue that it's deeply spiritual. A toddler becomes aware that one's waste should not be near oneself, but isn't always able to get the waste away. Parents become coaches, cheerleaders, and cleaning crews in companioning the toddler toward successful waste management. What a metaphor for being human. We hate our excrement, be it relational, emotional, spiritual, or whatever, but we keep making it and are unable to distance ourselves from it. We need companions to advise us, cheer us on, and help us clean up after ourselves.

It's no fun to clean up bodily fluids. I can see why a parent might shame a child for making messes. It was clear to me, however, that Wesley was shaming himself. (Why won't he feel shame over something worthy, like throwing toys at heads?) Coming from an evangelical background with plenty of legalism and shame and a pre-therapeutic family focused more on outcomes and behavior than processes and feelings, I don't have good, cultivated responses for situations like this. But Wesley called forth the love that he needed. After a few bad minutes of cowering in the back of the bathtub while I poured water over him, he climbed onto me and held on for dear life. I traced the angel hairs that grow into a V at his lower back and chanted, "It's okay" until he felt better.

The Golden Rule is not a rule at all, something to be memorized and performed, but a reality that is called forth when we love and are loved. While holding Wesley, I realized that in the act of parenting, I also am parented. In loving, I am loved. Faith means that even when I can't see anyone out there, I still cry out and ask for the love I need, believing that someone will come and not only count the angel hairs in the small of my back, but also stroke them until I feel better.

Jenell Williams Paris is professor of sociology and anthropology at Messiah College.

Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

Paris has more information about herself at her Bethel University page. She blogs at The Paris Project (where a version of this essay originally appeared), ParisBabies, and the Generous Orthodoxy Think Tank.

Previous articles by Jenell Williams Paris include:

Disorderly Disciplines | When I entered motherhood, my traditional spiritual life became impossible. (May 21, 2007)

When Mother's Day Is Hard | Taking solace in Scripture's difficult and unsentimental image of motherhood. (May 1, 2004)

Has Natural Birth Control Been Proved Impossible? | "Don't believe the media reports, cautions the author of Birth Control for Christians" (July 1, 2003)

Community and Conscience | Catholics and contraception. (Books & Culture, May/June 2005)

The Truth About Sex | Even Christians get seduced by the sexual lies our culture proclaims (November 12, 2002)

Sex Ed. For Adults | God-given longings in a broken world. (Books & Culture, September 1, 2004)

Beyond Integration | Two recent books on race (Re:generation Quarterly, July 1, 2000)

Why I No Longer Live in a Community (Re:generation Quarterly, April 1, 1999)

Christianity Today's other articles about family and parenthood are available on our site.

In a July 2005 video clip recently posted on YouTube, an unidentified man asks pro-life activists whether a woman should serve time in jail if she were convicted of abortion in a hypothetical post-Roe v. Wade world. The demonstrators shift feet, flush, show all the signs of thinking as they speak. The interviewer pushes them. Some of their conversations go in circles. Several of the pro-life activists admit they have been participating in anti-abortion demonstrations for years without considering the question of penalties.

Abortion rights advocates see an opportunity in that confusion. Organizations such as Planned Parenthood and the new National Institute for Reproductive Health are encouraging people to ask politicians, “How much time should she serve?” The question shows “that choice can be a winning issue if you force people to stop evading the hard facts,” Anna Quindlen wrote in a recent Newsweek column. Quindlen suggests that people who have pro-life convictions haven’t thought past their animosity to the idea of abortion.

“Perhaps rank-and-file pro-lifers haven’t thought through that,” responded Carrie Gordon Earll, senior policy analyst for bioethics at Focus on the Family. “But the people who are doing abortion policy in the pro-life movement have thought about that.”

Olivia Gans, who had an abortion in 1981, said, “When I looked at those faces [in the YouTube video], what I saw was a comprehension that women like me are going through something that is extraordinary in its scope, but I also saw a lack of understanding of how the law works.” Gans is now director of American Victims of Abortion, a branch of the National Right to Life Committee.

Quindlen wrote, “There are only two logical choices: Hold women accountable for a criminal act by sending them to prison, or refuse to criminalize the act in the first place.” Not true, says Earll: “Penalizing the woman is not even on the table.”

Historically, abortion legislation has recognized another choice: Hold the person who is most directly responsible for the abortion liable.

Charmaine Yoest, vice president of communications at the Family Research Council, explained that she sees abortion as an act of violence against both a woman and her child. “We’ve always argued that the doctor is the appropriate target because they’re the ones who are actually performing—there’s no nice way of saying it—they’re the ones who are actually murdering the baby,” she said.

As far as prosecution goes, Earll said, abortion is a more complicated issue than murder. She explained that in legal history, a woman who had an abortion was comparable to a battered woman who hurt someone in self-defense.

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said abortion is not the same as murder, since there is no cultural understanding that a fetus is a person. But if abortion were made illegal and he were a state legislator, Land said, “I would probably charge voluntary manslaughter for the abortionist. If [a doctor] were convicted, he would lose his medical license for two years and spend a year in prison with the first offense, and with the second offense, he would lose his medical license for life. At which point it’d be very difficult to find a doctor who’d do them.”

Such a legal stance is tantamount to “ignoring or infantilizing women, turning them into ‘victims’ of their own free will,” Quindlen wrote. “State statutes that propose punishing only a physician suggest the woman was merely some addled bystander who happened to find herself in the wrong stirrups at the wrong time.”

Land doesn’t deny that women who have abortions might be addled, but he, along with Yoest, Earll, and Gans, takes exception to them being described as bystanders—or as enlightened women making free, educated choices.

“It’s not demeaning to assume that any person who is a mother who could make the decision to do this must be suffering from some form of psychological impairment because of the crisis of the pregnancy or because of societal demeaning of human life,” Land said.

Gans said the primary responsibility should fall to those with the information necessary to make an educated choice. “The only advice [women with unwanted pregnancies] are being given [is from] the very people who stand to gain from our circ*mstances,” she said. “I have heard my sisters say again and again, ‘I didn’t think I had any choice. I wasn’t told there were any other choices I could make.'”

She believes that those who perform abortions are doing it for the money. “We know as a rule that if you approach this subject with civil remedies, abortionists get out of the business of abortion.”

Would making most abortion procedures illegal cause women to seek deadly, unprofessional abortions? Almost certainly not, Earll said. “What we saw with abortion is that when it’s illegal, most women don’t try to have one. The law is a teacher in this.”

Moreover, it’s a false assumption that even legal abortions are safe, said Yoest. “Women are still at serious risk. Abortion is the most unregulated health provider industry in the country today. We don’t keep good records of outcomes of abortion for women.”

Illegal abortion remains many steps off, even if Roe were overturned tomorrow. If the Supreme Court reversed the 1973 decision and the issue of abortion were returned to the states, Land said he would expect a range of laws across the U. S. defining permissible types and circ*mstances of abortion. He does not expect abortion to be entirely outlawed or restricted to saving the life of the mother in any state.

Some pro-life leaders think the very question of whether a woman should do time for an abortion indicates that the tide is turning on Roe v. Wade. While planning for illegalized abortion is speculative, Land, Gans, and Earll believe that Roe will be reversed some day—sooner rather than later, said Land. “It’ll happen in my lifetime. And I’m 60.” The pro-life movement, he added, is prepared for the subsequent changes.

“When you see the laws changing,” said Gans, who believes the reversal of Roe is a long way off, “You see women looking for what they really want—what they told us again and again in study after study are real help, real assistance, and real alternatives that provide for them and their unborn children.”

Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

The president of Americans United for Life wrote about the history of abortion prosecution in a National Review Online symposium about Quindlen’s column.

Recent articles on legislation and abortion are in our life ethics section and include:

| Shuler, a Democratic Congressman from North Carolina who ran as a social conservative, defeated a Republican incumbent in 2006. (June 26, 2007)

Partial Reversal | The Supreme Court’s abortion decision shows that the arguments have changed. (May 14, 2007)

Don’t Cede the High Ground | Our abortion views don’t rest on sociological data. (March 25, 2007)

Total Victory on Partial-Birth Abortion | Prolife leaders applaud Supreme Court’s first regulation on an abortion procedure. (March 19, 2007)

Calvin College graduate Geert Heetebrij made a quirky-but-wonderful indie film a few years ago called A Foreign Affair, starring Emily Mortimer and Tim Blake Nelson. The movie never hit it big, but critics (two thumbs up from Ebert & Roeper!) and audiences loved it.

We interviewed Heetebrij about the film at the time, but hadn’t heard about him—or from him—again till recently, when he and old friend Helmut Schleppi wrapped up a new movie called The Interior.

The film—written/created by Heetebrij and directed by Schleppi—is about new Christian missionaries embarking on their journey in a South American jungle.

It’s like no film that’s ever been done before: They put out a casting call on YouTube, and received hundreds of video auditions, ultimately narrowing it down to the four lead roles—the young missionary couple new on the field, and an older missionary couple that is, uhh, pretty weird and creepy. The film is now being released online in episodes over the course of about four months—playing out episodically like a TV series, but the end result will be about a 90-minute film available for purchase on DVD this fall or winter.

Heetebrij took out a second mortgage on his home—with his wife’s blessings—to fund the project, which was filmed in the jungles of Panama. We caught up with the writer recently for an e-mail interview to learn more about the project.

How/where/when did the idea for The Interior come about?

Geert Heetebrij: One day early last year, Helmut and I were shooting the breeze, when he shared some anecdotes from his upbringing as a missionary kid in the jungle in Suriname, really intriguing, and I joked that it was a crime that he had never done anything with all of that. He started sending anecdotes, characters, ideas, for days on end. That triggered what would later become The Interior. Obviously, there were stories in those woods …

Why did you want to make a film about missions/missionaries?

Heetebrij: I’ve always been fascinated by jungle missions, even as a kid—the nerve of these people to pick up and go. Talk about a leap of faith—mentally, physically, spiritually; everything about it is extreme. And there’s a treasure trove of relatively untapped material there. We’re especially interested in the stuff that missionaries don’t write home about—the quiet struggles, daily life. We’re interested in the diaries more than in the letters to supporters.

How would you describe the plot synopsis in just a few sentences?

Heetebrij: We see it as Little House on the Prairie meets Sin City. It’s about a young couple that feels called to become missionaries in the rainforest. But while they expect to live nearer to God in nature, they instead find themselves in a land of gold diggers, prostitutes, and voodoo.

How many episodes in all, and how long will the finished film be?

Heetebrij: We’re planning 12 weekly episodes, with every month a grouping of the previous four episodes combined, so we should have all of them online in a time span of about four months. The final film will be cut differently, and will also be longer than all the episodes combined; it will be a little under 1½ hours in length.

How did the online concept come about?

Heetebrij: It was a classic case of expanding vision. Originally, we wanted to find and tell a unique story. We thought the concept would lend itself well as a series, and we pitched it to almost all of the networks. They all turned us down (“too dark”; “too out there”; “not for us”). Then we thought about doing this ourselves, as a feature. We expanded the pilot script into a feature script, and meanwhile, started thinking about distribution. That’s where the Internet came in.

Nowadays, anyone with a fast connection can be reached. Worldwide. You don’t need a middleman to get to people anymore. You can approach a lot of folks directly.

The website isn’t just about the film anymore; the interactivity, the ability for fans to communicate in the forums on the site, all of it is part of this new distribution approach.

We are building The Interior community. As it increases in size, we are becoming interesting to advertisers. And as that builds, the website should become a platform for more films, a self-sustaining hub for these kind of stories, documentaries, all kinds of offshoots that are a “fit.” You name it. The vision is still expanding.

Were you skeptical about the online audition process?

Heetebrij: We figured, if we were going to the film on the Internet, why not draw our cast from the Internet, too? Who knew what hidden talent we might find? We tested the waters by creating a simple The Interior “storefront” site, directing actors to YouTube where they could upload their audition clips.

The casting was a bit of a gamble because what if we would only draw amateurs, whereas real talent would feel a YouTube audition would be below them? There were lots of questions, but that all resolved itself. We ended up with an extraordinary cast—including Hanna Verboom, Christian Badami, Whitt Brantley, and Philece Sampler.

The response was overwhelming. We got thousands of emails from actors, and hundreds of audition clips were posted on YouTube, coming in from all over the planet. We were approached by Reuters and The Wall Street Journal over our approach because this was new; no one had ever casted a feature/drama series like this.

Your online bio says that 2006 was “the year of letting go.” Letting go of what?

Heetebrij: Of common sense. During the summer of 2005, I was working nights. My wife was pregnant with our fourth child. I was hardly making ends meet, and I also knew I wouldn’t be able to work nights anymore with a new baby in the house. I was a worried man.

Then, shortly before our daughter was born, out of the blue, a European video game company approached me to write a story for an adventure video game. I hadn’t written anything in years, but they just came to me. I accepted, and during the months after the baby was born, I not only worked from home, doing something I loved, we also had enough income. Everything about the assignment, including the timing, had been perfect. Could it be … a Sign? If it was, it’d be a first for me, because I’m not given to that kind of theology. But what if it was? A nudge for me to just stop worrying my life away with dead-end side jobs and start pursuing writing, and that we’d be taken care of.

You took out a home equity loan to fund The Interior?

Heetebrij: The one thing that’s consistently done well financially for us was our house. Southern California homes had appreciated in value by leaps and bounds. I had used part of that for making A Foreign Affair.

I began to see writing as my calling. My wife was onboard. We took out another home equity line, and I started writing a supernatural thriller. After three months, the first draft was finished. I didn’t like it. Around that time, Helmut and I had that conversation that triggered our new collaboration. I shelved the supernatural thriller, and in May [2006] we flew to Suriname [where Schleppi grew up, and where Heetebrij could get a “feel” for jungle life]. We came back out with the idea for The Interior. At the end of July we had our pilot script.

How are you making any money off of this?

Heetebrij: We’re not making any money yet. Right now, we’re building the member base of The Interior community, and the way we’re doing that is with engaging stories, fresh content, and interactivity. The goal is to make it financially self-sustaining so we can continue this adventure long term. At the moment, we’re looking for a sponsor that will fit The Interior brand.

Any interesting stories from the set?

Heetebrij: The black scorpion in the dressing room; the crocodiles in the pond adjacent to our set; the gigantic spider on the ceiling during the filming of the outhouse scene. There were a lot of critters. No one saw more of them than Gary, our soundman. He actually looked like a leper from all the mosquito bites; none of us had ever seen anything like it. After a doctor’s visit, Gary decided to tough it out, though. More of that can be seen in the videos section on our website.

Would you consider this a “Christian” movie? And if it were to get an MPAA rating, what would it be?

Heetebrij: I wouldn’t label it as such because it might give the idea that this is a movie only for Christians, and it’s not. It is a movie about Christians. We set out to tell a story that we feel passionate about. We try very hard to be authentic. We’re not sugarcoating their journey of faith, and we include their moments of despair, because those are the kinds of moments where God’s power shines through. Hopefully, the story will have universal appeal and will entertain viewers from any background. So far, if the members’ comments on the site are any guide, The Interior is succeeding in doing just that.

And my guess is that an MPAA rating would be PG-13.

How has your own faith informed the process of making this film, and in “reverse,” how has the process of making this film affected your faith?

Heetebrij: The making of The Interior became what the story is about. Since our approach was so new, it took a lot of leaps of faith. These missionaries in the story feel called. But are they? Is there really anything special about what they’re doing, or have they simply projected a divine calling on personal ambition? These are questions that I struggled with on a daily basis while my cash was running out. What if I had made all this up, and I was dragging my family down with me in this crazy project?

There were sleepless nights. Home equity only goes so far. But what’s also true is that so far, every leap we have taken in this project has been met by solid ground. Talented Hollywood professionals have come alongside and carried this project onward to where it is today. I guess if I’m learning anything here, it’s to stop worrying and press onward.

What’s next for you and/or Helmut?

Heetebrij: We recently posted an open casting call for Season 2 of The Interior. We intend to shoot The Interior II next year. Our vision is also to use the website as a platform for other productions that would resonate with The Interior community.

For more information on Heetebrij and The Interior, go to the official website.

Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Twenty-five years ago, the film Tron was a revolution – the first movie to use digital animation extensively. But critics almost universally panned the movie. One said, “Tron is loaded with visual delights but falls way short of the mark in story and viewer involvement.”

How can preachers avoid that same trap? With our increasing ability to produce “visual delights,” can we forget what matters most? How can we use technology to help, not hinder, the proclamation of God’s Word? At the most recent National Pastors Convention, we brought together three pastors to discuss these questions. Below is an excerpt from the conversation. You can find the full interview on Leadership’s website.

How important is it to use 21st-century technology when communicating the gospel in the 21st century?

Shane Hipps: It’s important only if we understand their innate bias, because media are not neutral tools. The media are messages in themselves, and every single medium you use carries a different message embedded in it.

I occasionally use visual media and technology as a crutch to help keep what I’m saying interesting. But when an 80-year-old woman who lived through the Great Depression stood up in my congregation and told a story, she didn’t use any technology, and everyone was on the edge of their seats listening to her suffering and what she lived through.

As the medium, she was infinitely more powerful than any technology I could bring.

John Palmieri: I agree, to a point. Trying to more media-savvy than the world around us – that is a battle we will lose. And if I’m just trying to be “relevant,” I’ll probably miss the mark every time.

But it is our responsibility to be resourceful and creative. If some technology is effective for communication, like a movie clip, great – use it. But if there’s a story from a person within the community, a testimony, use that instead.

We use imagery. We use technology, but only to the extent that it enhances the message. If used too often, it can become more of a distraction.

What does it mean to be incarnational as we communicate God’s Word? Can incarnation happen with technology?

Jarrett Stevens: Most weeks we do video interviews. That’s incarnational. Bringing someone out for a live interview is much more raw and dynamic, but you have way less control. For example, we had a woman who’d recently been saved interviewed on video. She was telling her story and whenever she messed up, she dropped the f-bomb. Thankfully we could edit the video. If that had been live in the worship service, it might have been a great moment, but I doubt we could have fully recovered from it.

Hipps: Do I believe certain technologies preclude incarnational ministry? Absolutely. God came embodied in Jesus. He didn’t just project his likeness. Embodiment means human physical touch; presence. And there are certain technologies that disembody us, like video.

I’m not opposed to using video in church, I just think we should recognize that it may inadvertently send a message that is counter to the incarnation.

We hear a lot about shorter attention spans. How long are your sermons?

Stevens: If I preach more than 35 minutes, I’ve gone too long.

Hipps: About 15 minutes.

Palmieri: We rarely preach for under 40 minutes. For a long time, I thought attention spans were shortening. I don’t think so anymore. People still engage in movies, books, and television shows and never break concentration. Instead I think attention spans are widening. We’ve learned to pay attention to multiple things at once.

Is that why visuals are so popular – people now expect multiple forms of communication to happen at once?

Hipps: Whether attentions spans are wider or shorter, one thing is clear: the way we think has changed. In the 1980s the average cut in a TV program was about seven seconds. There was seven seconds of uninterrupted footage followed by a camera cut. By the mid-1990s it had dropped to two seconds. Images now change rapidly. Whether you know it or not, that actually re-forms neural pathways in your brain. For my generation in particular, the way we engage things has been fundamentally altered.

How do you get people to do linear abstract thinking, which is what Scripture demands in many ways, when those people’s minds are not wired for it? I’ve responded by dramatically shortening my sermons.

I try to ground people in the text, and I can only do it for about 15 minutes. After that, it’s easy to lose people.

Stevens: A story or image is powerful, and it’s going to do its own thing. It might take on a life of its own. So it must clearly fit the point I’m trying to communicate. If I use multiple images to illustrate multiple points, it’s going to overwhelm people. So I try to have one idea and one image to illustrate it. Anything more is just going to get lost.

Read the entire article at Leadership’s website.

Shane Hipps is pastor of Trinity Mennonite Church in Phoenix, Arizona. Prior to pastoral ministry, Shane had a career in advertising.

John Palmieri is a pastor of multi-cultural, multi-site, New Life Community Church in Chicago. Prior to pastoral ministry, he was involved in the food business.

Jarrett Stevens is director of the college and singles ministry, and teacher for 7|22 at North Point Church in Alpharetta, Georgia. Previously he served as a teaching pastor for Axis at Willow Creek Community Church.

Leadership will be hosting another conversation on preaching at the National Pastors Convention, February 26-29, 2008. See www.nationalpastorsconvention.com for more information.

The Reuters story referenced in my last post contained a wild misuse of a common word. Here’s the citation:

While the prolific death chamber in the city of Huntsville, where 19 inmates have already been executed by lethal injection in 2007, makes Texas stand out, the state is also starting to follow national trends toward fewer death sentences.

“Prolific death chamber”? “Prolfiic” comes from a Latin word meaning “fruitful,” which in turn is based on the Latin word for “offspring.” The American Heritage Dictionary offers two definitions for the word:

1. Producing offspring or fruit in great abundance; fertile.

2. Producing abundant works or results: a prolific artist.

The Reuters writer has stood a pro-life word on its head, exchanging the idea of fruitfulness and fertility for sheer efficiency. Christian media critics have often criticized Reuters for uninformed handling of the religion factor in their reporting. But whatever they know or don’t know about religion, Reuters editors should know their dictionaries.

On Sunday, the Washington Post published a Reuters story about the number of executions in the state of Texas–now pushing a remarkable 400 since the Supreme Court lifted its ban on capital punishment in 1976. Texas has carried out 398 executions and it has 5 more planned for August. The closest runner up to the Texas numbers is Virginia with 96 executions–only one quarter of the Lone Star State’s record.

What was puzzling about the story was the way writer Ed Stoddard tried to link the numbers to religion. Here’s how he led off the story:

Texas will almost certainly hit the grim total of 400 executions this month, far ahead of any other state, testament to the influence of the state’s conservative evangelical Christians and its cultural mix of Old South and Wild West.

The Washington Post repeated the emphasis by headlining the story, “Religion, Culture Behind Texas Execution Tally.”

Whoa there, Podner!

What does religion have to do with it? All Stoddard could come up with was this:

Like his predecessor, Governor Perry is a devout Christian, highlighting one key factor in Texas’ enthusiasm for the death penalty that many outsiders find puzzling – the support it gets from conservative evangelical churches.

This is in line with their emphasis on individuals taking responsibility for their own salvation, and they also find justification in scripture.

“A lot of evangelical Protestants not only believe that capital punishment is permissible but that it is demanded by God. And they see sanction for that in the Old Testament especially,” said Matthew Wilson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

That’s it. Unless you also count the fact the Governor Rick Perry is “a devout Christian.” Yup, that explains a lot.

Let’s take a look at the factors cited by Stoddard:

First, a belief in individuals taking responsibility for their own salvation. Well, of course we evangelical Protestants don’t teach that individuals “take responsibility for their own salvation.” We teach that the grace of God comes to individuals in their pervasively sinful state and enables them to respond to his love by faith. But, yes, we do emphasize that individuals can have a personal, saving relationship with Jesus (as opposed to salvation necessarily being mediated through clerics and church ritual).

But neither Stoddard’s version of evangelical belief nor the correct one has much to do with capital punishment. If anything, belief in the individual dimension of salvation drives evangelicals to engage in more extensive and more intense prison ministry than other Christians.

Second, evangelicals find justification for capital punishment in Scripture, particularly in the Old Testament. Well, no and yes.

No, evangelicals who support capital punishment do not use the Old Testament as their primary source of justification. If you ask almost any evangelical in the pew if they think that Sabbath-breaking or hom*osexuality should be a capital crime, they would shudder in horror at the thought.

Yes, evangelicals do find support in Scripture–but as part of God’s plan for the secular order. See Romans 13:1-7, where the Apostle Paul portrays “the sword” and taxes as legitimate functions of the state. But to consider this a legitimate function of the state is not to approve of the way any given state carries out its responsibility for retribution.

When studies show disproportionate application of the death penalty by race or economic status, Christians of any and every stripe should be challenging the system. And when DNA-testing and other death-row efforts repeatedly reveal the miscarriage of justice, Christians should be working to make sure justice is truly served.