Scott Freeman

As you know by reading my blog, I am somewhat of a pop culture junkie. I love TV, movies, reading and devour Entertainment Weekly.
However, that does not mean that I like the relentless pounding of certain stories and celebrities into our brains. So here is a list of people and stories that are dead to this blog. If you want to read in the coming months about any of these individuals this will NOT be the place to come:

10. Fred Phelps–What would be better would be if all of us would commit to not bringing any more publicity to this guy and his venomous hatred. He feeds on the publicity, so why do we keep giving it to him?

9. Donald Trump–I can’t even bear to comment, here.

8. Rosie O’Donnell–Ditto above.

7. Pat Robertson–I will not respond to any of his visions, dreams or prophecies this year. The guy can leg press 12,000 pounds. Why would I want to mess with him?

6. Grey’s Anatomy–I know all of you love this. But I don’t watch it and don’t intend to. It has that Friends-Syndrome going on, where the individuals overshadow the show.

5. Britney Spears–Haven’t we all seen enough?

4. Any political scandal that involves the suffix -gate. Isn’t it time to get a little bit more creative? How about using -insky or -anamo? We could refer to the build-up of troops in Iraq as surgeinsky. How about the Scooter Libby stuff being Scootanamo?

3. American Idol–Yeah, I’m probably going to watch at least some of it because my two older girls want to see it. But I’m not going to talk about it.

2. I will not use the following words: emerging, emergent, ancient-future, the prefix neo-, crunchy con, Nazi in relation to any viewpoint, last days, end times, information superhighway, snap, cyber or top 8.

1. The following sports topics will be banned: Mel Kiper’s hair, athletes and coaches leaving the University of Arkansas, nefarious recruiting practices, and the integrity of baseball.

What else should be banned?

As a staunch proponent of nonviolence, Martin Luther King, Jr. is one of my heroes of the faith. When so many people doubt the efficacy of nonviolent resistance and extol the virtues of “redemptive violence,” King’s legacy stands out as the epitome of nonviolent success.

In 1955 when E.D. Nixon suggested a young preacher to organize and lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott there was little reason to suspect that this man was anything more than a fiery and skilled homiletician.
Yet there was more, much more to Martin Luther King, Jr. He was a man of courage.
A man of conviction.
A man of peace.

He agreed to lead that boycott on one condition: that it be completely non-violent.
That, in itself, has to be seen as courageous. The human inclination would be to strike back physically.
But King went against the trend. He bucked the system.
He turned the other cheek.
For 381 days blacks in Montgomery boycotted the buses and Jim Crow itself. And they did it without violence.
Even when his house was bombed while his wife and child were inside. And even when the crowd that assembled outside his home that same night vowed retaliation he insisted on being peaceful.
At the risk of his own life he knew that true courage was found not in violence.
True courage was found not in retaliation or in raising the hand.
True courage, true greatness, was found in service.
In love and in peace.

His life was a testament to love, to believing in the innate goodness of man.
The Civil Rights Movement would not have experienced the success it did without his unbending commitment to nonviolence.

He showed that it worked.
Take a few moments today and read some quotes from this great American:

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies – or else? The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.

Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of nuclear annihilation… I believe that even amid today’s mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow… I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed.

More recently I have come to see the need for the method of nonviolence in international relations. Although I was not yet convinced of its efficacy in conflicts between nations, I felt that while war could never be a positive good, it could serve as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force. War, horrible as it is, might be preferable to surrender to a totalitarian system. But now I believe that the potential destructiveness of modern weapons totally rules out the possibility of war ever again achieving a negative good. If we assume that mankind has a right to survive then we must find an alternative to war and destruction. “Don’t ever let anyone pull you so low as to hate them. We must use the weapon of love. We must have the compassion and understanding for those who hate us. We must realize so many people are taught to hate us that they are not totally responsible for their hate. But we stand in life at midnight; we are always on the threshold of a new dawn.”

World peace through nonviolent means is neither absurd nor unattainable. All other methods have failed. Thus we must begin anew. Nonviolence is a good starting point. Those of us who believe in this method can be voices of reason, sanity, and understanding amid the voices of violence, hatred, and emotion. We can very well set a mood of peace out of which a system of peace can be built.

I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism. Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, love is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. To return hate for hate does nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Someone must have sense enough and religion enough to cut off the chain of hate and evil, and this can only be done through love.

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction…. The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

And what is likely my favorite quote by Dr. King:

To our most bitter opponents we say: “We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Throw us in jail and we shall still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process and our victory will be a double victory.”

Thank you Dr. King for your legacy of love and nonviolence.

I’m loving being on Facebook. No annoying songs or Myspace wallpapers. Look me up and add me as a friend.

In the wake of the sad news of us compounding our “mistake” (although the loss of thousands of lives is greater than a mistake, IMHO), I thought this video from Will Kimbrough was appropriate.

Tracy and I work hard to teach our children the values that we hold dear. That’s pretty difficult. They hear words from other people that we don’t want them to say. They learn things that we never taught them. They pick stuff up that we wish they wouldn’t. It’s the way of the world.

For example, I took two weeks off over the Christmas holidays. As it worked out we were in town both of those weeks. One night in the car, I asked Chloe where she wanted to go to church on Sunday.

Her answer was immediate, “I want to go to my church.”

I then tried to explain to her that when I am on vacation we don’t go to our home congregation. So she responded, “I don’t care. But it has to be a Church of Christ.”

That is not anything she has ever heard from us. But she got it somewhere.

I was raised in a loving family. My parents taught me the love of Christ from an early age. They have been the examples of unconditional love that has placed within me the desire to be a Christian, a minister, a loving husband and a father.

I am who I am because of them. And I owe them the deepest debt of gratitude for teaching me love.

But…I was not raised in a vacuum. I learned elsewhere that love, for most, was conditional.

I learned colorful terms for people who looked or acted differently.
I learned that “disfellowshipped” people should not be talked to if encountered in public places.
I learned to kick, hit, pinch and scream.

Home was a haven from all of that. It was where I truly began to see that there was more to love than what the world and far too often, the church, displayed. It wasn’t perfect, but it can’t be.

Here is part of an important realization: we can’t fully teach love. God IS love. And that’s way too big of a concept for us to ever comprehend. Let alone teach.

I will never get my mind around the love of God. It’s too big. I’ll always underestimate it.
I will never fully teach my children the love of God. It’s too vast. I’ll always undersell it.

That’s not failure. It’s just that I “see in a mirror dimly…I know in part” the love of God.”

But I must endeavor to teach my children to the fullness of my understanding. Just as my parents did.
And I hope and pray that through my life, my teaching, my example they see and touch the face of God.

For God IS love.

It’s been a few weeks since I talked about what I’ve been reading. So, I thought I would give a cursory overview of what I’ve been looking at lately (all books available on the left sidebar):

The Judges by Elie Wiesel–I had high hopes for this book, written by the highly lauded Wiesel and an intriguing premise. A freak snowstorm has forced an Israeli-bound plane to land in remote Connecticut. Five of those passengers are provided shelter by a man who imprisons them in his home and forces them to take stock of their lives. One of them must die for the secrets they each harbor. However, it never pays off and gets mired down quickly. However, there is one excerpt that stuck with me:

“Rejecting violence and hatred demands more strength and more courage than yielding to them! Killing is easy; any fool or degenerate can do it. But giving meaning to life is a complex challenge of a quite different order.”

Grade: C+

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman–Ehh. Grade: C

The Road by Cormac Mccarthy–I devoured this book in a single night. The imagery of a post-apocalyptic world is at turns frightening, brutal and ultimately redemptive. A father and a son try to survive in a world devastated by the violence of men. Mccarthy captures the despair, longing and hope in a world that is stripped of humanity.
Grade: A

Tempting Faith by David Kuo–This book is a must read for anyone who has ever believed that politics and government can do the job of the Kingdom. Kuo writes as someone who placed his faith in America and, more narrowly the GOP, to be the voice of God. Ultimately, he realizes that the hope of Christ is found, not in fallen powers, but in Christ Himself. Kuo writes of his loss of innocence in the political process and his disillusionment with those involved in the political machine without being vindictive or judgmental. That is a fine line to maintain.
Grade: A-

Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay–Not typically the book I would read, I caught the audio version of this on my drive to Arkansas over Christmas. It’s the story of a serial killer who only kills other serial killers. The book, mostly told from Dexter’s perspective, never portrays Dexter as a good guy. Instead, it delves into the psyche of a man driven to do unspeakable things while operating under the delusion that it can be justified if it is done on the “deserving.” A riveting read.
Grade: B

The Messiah of Morris Avenue by Tony Hendra–It’s been almost 20 years since I read Joseph Girzone’s modern day Christ incarnation story, Joshua. At the time, it was a revelation of the character and person of Christ and how He would be rejected yet again in today’s world. In retrospect, Girzone’s rendering is almost quaint. Hendra’s is anything but. He envisions an America sometime in the next decade that has become a theocracy. The Christian Right now enforces their morality on all people even going so far as to ban shampoo commercials to prevent lust. War as propagated to speed the eschaton. In the midst of this conversion by coercion, steps a young man named Jose, who begins to speak of love, peace and caring for the least of these. This is a fantastic look at how America might respond to the message of Christ today.
Grade: B+

The Evangelical Universalist by Gregory MacDonald–The mark of a great book, to me, is one that stretches me and makes me rethink long entrenched beliefs. This is one of those books. Another mark of a great book is one that I have to prepare myself for. Yet, I’m still not sure if I am fully prepared for the implications that MacDonald lays out for us. He is a described hopeful dogmatic universalist. No matter where you fall in your understanding of the love of God this book is a must read. Gregory MacDonald is a pseudonym of a prominent evangelical writer. The subject matter is too volatile for him to use his real name. I’ll be talking more about this later. Yet, if Calvinism and Arminianism, with all of their flaws and shortcomings are a part of the discussion, can’t we have the spiritual foresight to look at all possible renderings of the love of God? I say we must.
Grade–A

Letters to a Young Evangelical by Tony Campolo–When I first became a Christ-follower I was given a little gold covered book entitled “Now That I Am A Christian.” If I was just now becoming a disciple of Christ, this is the book I would want. Campolo touches on the things that a young believer should be aware of.
Grade–A

Anybody read any of these titles? If not, what are you reading right now?

I realized earlier that I had not posted my top Christian reads of the year just past. I read a lot of Biblical commentaries and other “work-related” writings that I don’t write much about. I know that most probably don’t care about the more exegetical stuff so I leave that off of here.
I also don’t read a whole lot of mainstream evangelical writings. However, these 10 were pivotal readings for me this past year:

10. Kingdom Come: Embracing the Spiritual Legacy of David Lipscomb and James Harding by Bobby Valentine and John Mark Hicks–I found this a quick and enjoyable read. This is a great primer on a little talked about faction of early 20th Century CoC’s. Lipscomb and Harding had greater insight into the Kingdom life than we fully realize. Valentine and Hicks have written a very accessible read. Although quick reading it is, in no way, light.

9. Jesus and Non-Violence: A Third Way by Walter Wink–Wink is one of the foremost voices on living the nonviolent life as exemplified by Jesus. In this short book he lays out a passionate argument for the importance and efficacy of being people of peace.

8. Dissident Discipleship by David Augsburger–I consider those saints who hail from the Anabaptist tradition to be heroes of the faith. Their unswerving commitment to following Christ is a tremendous example for us all. In this instant classic, which I view as a companion piece to Lee Camp’s seminal Mere Discipleship, Augsburger recounts 7 characteristics of their spirituality for us to consider: Radical Attachment, Stubborn Loyalty, Tenacious Serenity, Habitual Humility, Resolute Nonviolence, Concrete Service and Authentic Witness.

7. The Jews in the Time of Jesus: An Introduction by Stephen Wylen–You cannot understand the life of Christ and/or the gospels without somewhat of a grasp on Second Temple Judaism. That is the world in which Christ lived and taught. Wylen does a masterful job of giving the Jewish perspective of that most important time.

6. The Challenge of Jesus by N.T. Wright: I tried to limit this top 10 list to one book per author. That was difficult where Wright is concerned, who writes a new book about as often as I change shirts. This work, however, is seminal. It does not get as much chatter as McLaren’s “The Secret Message of Jesus” but it is vastly superior. It places the life of Christ in the proper context and enables us to see truly who He was.

5. A Critical Introduction To The New Testament: Interpreting The Message And Meaning Of Jesus Christ by Carl Holladay–This book has been absolutely essential for me this year as I am preaching and teaching through the NT. A definitive work. This is a serious and scholarly work that would make a great addition to any minister’s library.

4. Trolls and Truth by Jimmy Dorrell–Dorrell is the pastor of the Church Under the Bridge here in Waco. He is also the director of Mission Waco. He is living the life of Christ among the least of these. This book shows what the church is called to be.

3. The Politics of Jesus by John Howard Yoder–Yoder and his writings have been tremendously informative for me this past year. Jesus was not apolitical. He just came to establish a Kingdom not of this world. No one lays that out better than Yoder.

2. The Evangelical Universalist by Gregory MacDonald–The mark of a great book, to me, is one that stretches me and makes me rethink long entrenched beliefs. This is one of those books. Another mark of a great book is one that I have to prepare myself for. Yet, I’m still not sure if I am fully prepared for the implications that MacDonald lays out for us. He is a described hopeful dogmatic universalist. No matter where you fall in your understanding of the love of God this book is a must read. Gregory MacDonald is a pseudonym of a prominent evangelical writer. The subject matter is too volatile for him to use his real name. I’ll be talking more about this later.

1. Slaves, Women and Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis by William Webb–Webb has done a masterful job of laying out a viable and plausible hermeneutic that must be considered. It is, ultimately, a hermeneutic of redemption. Get it and read it. It’s a dense and weighty work but the payoff is worth it. In the end, I may derive some different conclusion than Mr. Webb but his analysis is outstanding.

What Christian books struck you this past year?

I’ve always rejected the doctrine of Calvinism. Even before I knew what it truly was, I knew that I was against it. I just wasn’t a TULIP fan. A few years ago, I realized that I had never given the doctrine a fair shake. I knew many people who held to this idea of limited atonement and knew them to be sincere and committed Christians.
So, I committed to reading as much as I could from all perspectives. In the end, I rejected Calvinism yet again. God is sovereign, yes. But He is also a God of love.

What I’ve come to realize lately, however, is that I unwittingly adopted a form of Calvinism that held to a view that God HAD chosen certain people over others. In my view, I was one of those chosen. Some examples:

–One of my best friends in 10th grade was a Presbyterian. However, my friendship with him was always marred by my realization that he was bound for hell unless I intervened in a forceful way. The error that would ultimately damn my 15 year old buddy? Instrumental music. What motivated my daily badgering of him until, finally, he broke down in tears and our friendship came to a bitter end, was that I was better than he was. God had smiled on me with His infinite knowledge and had given ME the proper understanding of truth. I was the chosen one.

–Fast forward a few years to 1989 and I am a 21 year old idealist, recently emerged from a spiritually fallow period in my life. Billy Graham came to my home town for one of his crusades. At the time I was still working in the meat department at Kroger. One of my co-workers was a sweet woman who maintained her spiritual witness in the midst of a sometimes hostile environment. She was going to be one of the voices in the choir at the crusade. So, I went one night with a friend of mine to see what all the fuss was about. Graham preached a thundering message with a stirring altar call. Hundreds of people responded. My faith system told me, at the time, that every single person who went forward that night had done so for no reason. They were no closer to God than they had been before they got out of their bleacher seat. They might have wanted a relationship with Jesus but Jesus wasn’t there. I went home shaken with this belief. Could I really think that God was not moved by their limited understanding? My belief was that they needed someone like me to teach them the truth. For I was the chosen one, selected by God to have this gift of truth.

Over the last 16 years I have abandoned such a myopic view of God’s love for those in other denominations. But, sadly, I just exchanged it for an equally insidious view of God’s dispassionate relationship with others. That manifested itself in various forms:

–America was the hope for the proliferation of Christianity. God needed the United States if His message was going to persevere.
–The Republican Party was the mechanism for God’s redemption of America. By virtue of us being “right” on the important issues, God had chosen us to take America back. We were the elite of the elite, so to speak.

As a result, I believed God’s chosen must be protected at all costs. All of the Christian life was about “preserving” the values that I held dear. Therefore, I quantified everyone into either “us” or “them.” My enemies list was long: Democrats, liberals, immigrants, homosexuals, Muslims, abortionists, Catholics, minorities. And on and on.

I had developed my own form of Calvinism! Sure, we were all born depraved. But by virtue of God’s Sovereign (if not whimsical) election He had saved me by a grace that was evidenced in the fact that I was a white, middle-class, American raised in a conservative Christian home. And I must persevere amongst all the persecution that I must endure because of my special status as one of God’s favored.

And I wonder why my Christian witness has been compromised! Who wouldn’t respond to such moral superiority? Who wouldn’t want to know this God who has smiled so lavishly upon me?

But here is what I have realized: I have always, always, ALWAYS underestimated the love of God.
I have talked about the height, depth and width of His love while believing it is finite.

I have believed I was better than non-believers by virtue of my own moral luck.

But I’m not better than any one: Republicans, Democrats, liberals, immigrants, homosexuals, Muslims, abortionists, Catholics, minorities. And on and on.

But He is better. He is supreme. And His love is infinite, eternal and inescapable.

I repent of ever believing otherwise.

In the coming weeks, I will be talking more about the love of God and the implication for us.

My blogging schedule will return to normal on Tuesday when I return to the office full-time. I’m on vacation this week and I am trying to use as much of that time as possible planning sermon and class schedules for the summer and the fall.
It’s not going as well as I would like.
It’s difficult to plan for the future when my current theological underpinnings are being so challenged. Right now, I am leaning toward focusing on relationships in the fall. If we aren’t loving people then we aren’t loving God, right?

In the meantime, here are some scattered thoughts:

–Always great to see Notre Dame lose a bowl game.

–Can we acknowledge that Brady Quinn is just the latest product of the Notre Dame hype machine? He’ll be as great a pro QB as Ron Powlus.

–On that note, it would be fitting for him to drop down to #2 in the draft (Kiper has him #1 at this point). If the Detroit Lions are going to insist on continuing to allow Matt Millen to destroy this team, then they truly deserve Quinn.

–There are no safe picks for the Super Bowl. It’s wide open. I’m pulling for a Chargers/Saints finale.

–If you aren’t watching Beauty and the Geek on the CW then find a replay of last night’s season 3 premiere. It continues to be a top notch reality show that transcends the genre and displays heart and the goodness of people rather than banking on humiliation and cut-throat competition.

–I’ve seen several good movies in the last few weeks in preparation for my Oscar predictions coming up. Right now, I’m hoping for nominations for Little Miss Sunshine and Sacha Baron Cohen.

–On a related note: Am I the only one who did not like either United 93 or World Trade Center?

–Is it just because the Razorbacks are no longer powerhouses? Or have I truly lost the love for basketball?

–I hope to blog soon about books that I have read recently but for now let me recommend three: Gregory MacDonald’s The Evangelical Universalist, David Kuo’s Tempting Faith, and Cormac Mccarthy’s The Road. All of them are tremendous reads.

–I gave Josh Ritter’s The Animal Years the number one slot on my list of best CD’s of 2006. Here is another video from the album. This one is called Lillian, Egypt:

What better way for my first top 10 Tuesday of the new year than to look ahead at what I hope to accomplish over the next year?
Each year the missus and I compile our list of our top 10 highlights of the year just past and our goals for the coming year. That gives us quality time for reflection on the good times we experienced over the prior 12 months and to get on the same page as we prioritize what it is we hope to see happen within our family in the coming year.
This list is my personal wish list of what I hope to do:

10. Comment more on the blogs in my blog community and read less extraneous blogs. I deleted 50 blogs from my bloglines just yesterday. I can spend more time in genuine conversation with quality people if I read fewer blogs.

9. Spend more time in study on some theological issues that are nagging at me. Seriously, what does the word “all” mean?

8. Play with my kids. Real men play with dolls.

7. Network. I am gifted at preaching and teaching. But I remain mired in anonymity because of the fact that I did not graduate from a Christian college and I don’t mix with others. Being the only minister on staff for five years has had a major toll on me.

6. Commit to more date nights. Tracy and I have to take advantage of baby sitters more often.

5. Be more social. I am an introvert. I don’t get into gatherings or get-togethers. I must strive to get out more.

4. Read more by making greater use of skimming. I average about 150 books a year. But I can increase that if I take advantage of one of the best pieces of advice I ever got about Christian literature: take advantage of skimming. Let’s be honest, most books are padded.

3. Return to a 32 waist size and run consistently three days a week. If I am going to complete a marathon before I turn 40, then I have 18 months to get back to where I was in ’04 and ’05. I can still wear a size 34. But just barely.

2. Control the tone of my voice. I too often convey hostility, anger, impatience and frustration in talking to my wife and kids. I must learn to speak softly and kindly.

1. Be Incarnational. I want to do a greater job of manifesting the presence of Christ in the lives of others.

A prolonged (for me) blogging absence was not intended. I just haven’t gotten around to it lately.

We had a great Christmas. I finally got Sports Night on DVD and two Panini makers (I did take one back).
But more importantly, we got to spend some quality time with family.

Now, it’s a new year and I’m anxiously awaiting the Razorback game in a few hours.

I have off this week as well and will spend time doing some reading in preparation for this summer and fall of teaching and preaching. I’m also making plans for the direction of this blog over the next 12 months.

I’ll probably be sporadic posting for the rest of this week. Look for me to be back regularly on Monday, January 8.

Until then, Happy New Year