Being an Alumnus 101

Alumni are a cranky bunch. They look back on college as this blissful time of unending fun and unending laziness. Strong bonds of friendship are forged in late night nerf gun fights and vengeful pranks. It’s the foundation for much of what happens in the rest of the college-goer’s life.

And there is the whole giving part. Colleges know that nostalgia does wonders, and they constantly churn out campaigns that let alumni bask in their glory years. These campaigns are effective, but the way that colleges are marketed to their alumni as steady-as-a-rock unchanging places of higher learning has a severe drawback: whenever a change does occur the majority of alumni usually go ballistic.

I went to Philadelphia Biblical University. The institution, like all institutions, has gone through a variety of complex changes over its 100+ year history. It has moved up in the academic world from institute to college to university. It moved, like so many Americans have always done, from the heart of Philadelphia to the safety of the suburbs. It has changed how it is organized, changed some buildings, added some buildings, changed the dress code, changed the student handbook and changed the curriculum dozens of times over its long history.  And probably each time the alumni have turned into frothing, raging lunatics.

My alma mater has now decided to change its name. It will be Cairn University pending a board review, but one can assume since the board asked for the name change in the first place that it will not be the most contentious of meetings. When it was announced the alumni went ballistic, leaving juvenile, nostalgia-dripping rhetoric lambasting the name change.

There are some alumni who like it, but most do not. They fear it is a trend to turn Philadelphia Biblical from the institution they love into a cookie-cutter diploma mill that is par for the course in higher education these days. While I think their fear is well founded, the name really has nothing to do with it. You can become a cookie-cutter diploma mill without ever changing your name.

The fact is, we attach our emotions to institutions. We always will. But the first part of being an alumnus should always be support, not critique. It’s easy to spout venom and disparage every little change. It is a lot harder, as we grow older and grow more in control of our lives, to cede control of our childhood and adolescent memories.

If anything, I credit Philadelphia Biblical with giving me an education that serves as the foundation for every major decision I make as an adult. I use the critical thinking, skeptical, hard researching and analytical mind that was forged within the confines of that institution. Most alumni feel the same way. So why can’t alumni ever seem to let the institutions act in the way as an institution the way the institution has taught us to act in the first place?

Being an Alumnus 101 is then summarized as this: if you value the education you received from an institution and care deeply about it as an alumnus, then you should probably let the institution that forged you make adult decisions the same way you make adult decisions.

Which Kingdom Will You Choose?

At a pep rally in Alabama, some Mexican kids were sitting in the front seats, and other students started chanting, “Mexicans to the back!”

At a local church in Alabama, a woman commented that because she is Hispanic some people don’t want to pass the peace with her anymore at church. (This American Life, Act One: Alien Experiment)

Both of these situations are infuriating, hateful and cruel.

But the most despicable is the scene in the church, when people united by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ choose to let the kingdoms of this world, with its own laws and distorted sense of fairness and love, divide Christ’s kingdom.

We are given a choice, every day, to choose which kingdom we will grant our allegiance to.

Which kingdom will you choose?

On Veterans and Violence

Today is Veteran’s Day.

It’s also the day that the movie The Immortals comes out.

Our culture craves the decadence of violence. Violence is celebrated and vindicated. It is the way things are done. In film, Westerns and action film genres have at times lapsed into a celebration of violence as opposed to showing the real and present darkness that invades the lives of those who are caught in the cycle of violence.

For every Saving Private Ryan or Brothers, movies that are violent but do not glorify the violence (these movies, at their best, make you abhor what war does to people), there are countless cheap thrills movies that perpetuate violence as a solution.

On Veteran’s Day, Christians should support those who have seen the horrors of combat. Throughout Church history, there has been a large contingent of Christians that are pacifist, and some that allow for just wars. It is insightful to see though, that even in a just war, if a Christian killed someone in combat or self-protection, he would have to do a lengthy penance of fasting and prayer. Killing, even when justified, even when necessary, is something that Holy Spirit has shown us to be deeply unsettling, dark and evil.

There is no violence like The Immortals. There is only violence that leads to insomnia, PTSD, broken marriages, broken families, homelessness, drug use and suicide.

On this Veteran’s Day, it is good that we look to those who have been touched by violence and offer them the healing of Christ. For he is the life and light that will bring healing and wholeness to those places of the soul that have been scarred by the horrors of violence.

The Turning Over of Traditional Tables

Speaking to a professor at Liberty University, Frederica Mathewes-Green was surprised to find out that the professor and some of the young people at Liberty were going to a Celtic liturgical service at a local Baptist church (link; relevant conversation starts at the 28:50 mark). The professor related that the baby-boomers wanted the contemporary worship—with guitars and drums—while the young people of the church were willing to go to the 7:30am service on Sunday morning for a traditional Celtic service. Even more, these young Baptists were asking for intercession and litany.

Recently, in the 50th issue of RELEVANT, many of the faith trends the magazine summarized in coverage of their publishing history dealt with a return to liturgy, ancient-future worship and spiritual disciplines. There has been a huge surge in liturgical interest among young people like myself that Christian media has really picked up on.

The Gen-Xers and Baby Boomers see this as a “trend.” It’s something that young people are into, like Arcade Fire, Invisible Children, social justice or Tom’s Shoes. In part, it’s seen as “cool” or “hip.” They see a return to liturgy as a turning over of traditional evangelical or low-church Protestant tables. It’s a way to stick it to the man or not be part of the status quo.

I do agree that this liturgical, ancient-future worship movement is a turning over of traditional tables. But, this turning over of tables is not a spilling over of  a century’s worth of low-church Protestantism as the table is flipped over. Instead, this movement is a return to the center. It’s a journey back home. It’s a realization that almost 2,000 years of vibrant Christian worship had been totally eclipsed and stuck in closets or the histories found in dusty theological books.

This movement of my generation is a turning over of traditional tables: but we’re not flipping them over and sticking it to our parent’s and grandparent’s generation. We’re righting the tables. We’re dusting them off and putting the chairs back under it.

Liturgy isn’t cool. It holds no cultural currency or hipster value. Liturgy isn’t valuable. It’s old enough to be in the public domain, which means you can’t make any money off of it. Liturgy isn’t special. It’s not something that is canonical or God breathed.

Instead, let me say that liturgy is true and peculiar. It is the oral tradition of a peculiar people that, while changing over several hundred years, has been solely focused on instilling spiritual disciplines and practices in a worshiping people of God so that they can be God’s mission and see his kingdom come. Is there no greater reason than that to right the table?

The Writer’s Life

My essay “The Writer’s Life” was published last week in The Curator. An excerpt:

I had been to a Borders for the first time in high school, surveyed all the books, and pondered the obviousness of the situation: if there were so many books of poor quality, of dubious claims, of frivolous titles and rows of books I found no interest in, it would not be that hard at all to get a book of my own up onto the shelves. Surely there was a place for my own creation, and it wouldn’t even be that hard.

There is also a great piece on mockumentaries, “Meta-Mocks,” by Dylan Peterson, in this weekly edition.

The Other Journal’s Mediation Blog

The Other Journal has started a new blog called Mediation, which will foster dialogue at the intersection of faith and culture. I have the privilege of being chosen as a contributor to Mediation, and will be posting regularly. My first post is entitled “Edible Sculpture: Cake Boss and Mortality in Food Art.” In it, I  discuss Francis Schaeffer’s definition of art and the reality TV show Cake Boss.

For an introduction to the Mediation blog you can read Brett Potter’s introduction: “On Mediation.”