Month: October 2009

Posted on

Inglourious Basterds: A Review

By Jim Spiegel

Since his landmark 1993 film Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino has been rightly heralded as one of the finest film directors of our time.  The films he has made since, including Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, and Death Proof, have been consistently strong, but most critics agree that none of these efforts quite achieved the magic of his sophomore effort (Reservoir Dogs being Tarantino’s debut).  The pre-release hype for this year’s long-anticipated Inglourious Basterds intimated that it might be his best yet.  So being confirmed Tarantino fans, we were eager to check it out.  Was all the praise overblown?  Not at all.  Amy and I agree that the film is an instant classic.

200px-Inglourious_Basterds_posterSet in German-occupied France during World War II, Inglourious Basterds depicts two (wildly fictitious) plots to assassinate Hitler and his Nazi cronies.  One of these plots is executed by a ragtag vigilante team of Jewish-American soldiers.  Led by Aldo “The Apache” Raine (played by Brad Pitt), the group terrorizes Nazi soldiers by scalping all of their victims and disfiguring the few survivors.  The other plot is masterminded by one Shoshanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent).  Shoshanna and her boyfriend run a cinema in Paris.  When they learn that top Nazi officials, including the Fuhrer himself, plan to attend a premier at their theater, they concoct an assassination scheme that is as ironic as it is devastating.  Eventually, these two storylines converge, and the results are spellbinding.

Figuring prominently in both storylines is Nazi Colonel Hans Landa, a.k.a. “The Jew Hunter” (played by Christoph Waltz).  As the film follows him, we are equally appalled by his cool racism and charmed by his sophisticated wit.  The humanizing effect of developing his character in this way has caused some controversy, but viewers are nonetheless satisfied when he meets his fate—a sure sign that Tarantino did not make the Landa character too sympathetic.

So why do we love this film so?  Let us count the ways in tag-team fashion.

Amy: Let me begin by sharing a story that will hopefully shed light on my thoughts and feelings regarding Inglourious Basterds. When asked recently what I liked about the film, I was honesty puzzled by the question, first thinking “What do I like about it?” and then thinking “What do I like about it?”  This is like trying to analyze what you like about ice cream, capri pants, or sex.  It’s too basic to put into words, but you sure know you like it—a lot.  Of course, you can analyze, break down all the component that make it great but there is still that mysterious element when taken as a whole that sets it apart and makes it special.

Jim: Tarantino’s talent for blending and reinventing genres is well-known, but he out-does himself with Inglourious Basterds.  To tell a WWII story in the style of a spaghetti Western, seasoned with dashes of and comic superhero effects, is original enough, but to do so in such compelling fashion is what prevents the film from being a mere experiment.  In fact, the story is so gripping and, in its own way, realistic, that one actually forgets the genre twisting devices being used.  The (not very) secret of Tarantino’s success in this regard is his brilliance as a screenwriter.  He tells a story as well as anyone in film today, and his dialogue is consistently rich, enthralling, and believable.  Inglourious Basterds is Quentin Tarantino at his very best as a screenwriter.

Amy: Though there is a seemingly intangible magic to Inglourious Basterds, it is in fact the mundane in many ways that casts its spell.  I am a big believer in the idea that it is the little choices by filmmakers that make or break a film.  Details in casting, art direction and costume design all add or subtract layers in a way that either draw a viewer into the film as a participant or keep one at arm’s length all the while screaming “You are now watching a movie!”  It is the authentic feel of Tarantino’s settings, casting and costuming which, for me, give him greater freedom in storytelling; the atmosphere is so plausible that the sometimes absurd events seem completely natural.

Jim: When Tarantino is at his best, he manages to incorporate humor into serious, even dark and morbid plots.  Inglourious Basterds showcases his genius in this regard, featuring lots of amusing, memorable dialogue and scene premises, clever plays on language and cultural clichés, and even  physical comedy.  In most cases, the humor comes from the performances, especially by Pitt and Waltz, but many other subtleties and details, as noted by Amy, add to the film’s charm and comic qualities.

Amy: Of course, you can have amazing locations and clothing but without great acting it simply doesn’t work.  Fortunately, Inglourious Basterds is not lacking in outstanding performances.  I hesitate to even use the word “performance” because for the most part the actors were virtually flawless.  Rather than having the usual struggle to suspend your disbelief, you have to struggle to remember they are only acting.  I had bones to pick with Brad Pitt’s southern drawl, being from the area that his character claims to hail from, but other than that, the cast was remarkable.  (I feel I am quickly running out of positive adjectives:  tremendous, excellent, peachy keen?)  Even casting Pitt, along with a few other well-known actors who make surprise appearances, is perhaps all part of Tarantino’s master plan.  He has a habit of taking easily recognizable performers and casting them against type.

Jim: The performance by Christoph Waltz is one of the best of the decade.  He manages to be both endearing and sinister, which is a difficult line to walk.  Oh, and by the way, he very capably speaks four different languages in the film.  And his presence in every scene is commanding.  Tarantino has been quoted as saying that Waltz “gave me my movie back,” as he had essentially concluded that the part was “unplayable.”  It simply demanded too much of an actor.  Yet Waltz pulled it off and likely earned himself an Oscar in the process.

We’d like to conclude with some remarks about the profanity and violence in Inglourious Basterds.  Understandably, some viewers are bothered more by Tarantino films than by most in regards to these matters.  Part of the reason is the sheer volume of profanity in, say, Pulp Fiction, or the realism of the violence in most of his films.  Inglourious Basterds doesn’t have as much profanity as many popular contemporary films, and there is little sexual content and no nudity.  But there is plenty of violence, though not as much in terms of volume or realism as some other war films, such as Saving Private Ryan or To End All Wars.  For those who are sensitive to this, take warning.  But if your threshold of tolerance for violence is reasonably high, then prepare yourself for an aesthetic feast.

Posted on

Darwin’s Ten Worst Nightmares

By Jim Spiegel

Since this year is the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth (and also the sesquicentennial of his landmark book The Origin of Species) I thought I’d post something related to the modern champion of evolutionary theory.  While I do believe in natural selection and affirm the explanatory power of this mechanism when it comes to many biological adaptations and modifications, I am no Darwinist.  That is, I don’t think natural selection can explain the evolution of whole new biological families, much less new classes or phyla, of animals.  And the fallacy of the Darwinian paradigm, insofar as it affirms the common ancestry of all organisms, can be summed up in two words:  hasty generalization.  Just because variation within species (or, to be generous, new species and perhaps even new genera) can be produced through natural selection, it does not follow that all plants and animals evolved from a common ancestor.  In fact, there are many reasons to believe that common ancestry is false, even impossible.

So while many tributes to Darwin this year have celebrated the reputed fulfillment of the man’s dreams of a scientific explanation of all living things, I’d like to list some of his worst nightmares.  Here are, to my mind, some of the bigger problems with Darwinism, proceeding from particular problems to more general issues.

1. The Monotremes – These are the egg-laying mammals (including the platypus and the spiny anteater).   It’s not just these anomalous beasts that are problematic for Darwinism, but the whole step from egg-laying to live births.  One wonders how such a transition could ever take place.  Also, if it was somehow environmentally necessary, then why are there still so many thousands of species of successful egg layers?  All of these animals are doing just fine, thank you very much.

2. The Elephant – Consider the elephant’s trunk, an appendage so nimble that it basically has the functionality of both a hand and a water hose.  The trunk is, or is often called, a fusion of the “nose” and “upper lip.”  Also, the elephant appears to be the only animal with four knees.  Or, if the front knees are actually more like wrists, as some maintain, it remains the case that these joints function like knees.

3. Marsupials – In marsupials, such as kangaroos, koalas, and possums, embryos (at just 4-5 weeks!) leave the womb, crawl up the mother’s abdomen, and then crawl down into a pouch where there is a milk-producing nipple waiting for them.  Which came first, the life-sustaining pouch or the premature embryonic ex-cervical adventures?  And how to explain the embryo’s excursions in the first place?

4. Flight – Explaining the emergence of flight is not just a problem for Darwinism.  It is four separate problems, since there are (or have been) flying insects, bats, reptiles (Pterosaurs), as well as birds.

5.  The Eye — Darwinists typically point to light-sensitive spots in primitive organisms as precursors of the eye.  But such structures are so far from what we find in fish, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals as to be useless in providing a genuine account of eye evolution.  The coordination of meticulous musculature, circulatory, neurological, and anatomical structures in even the fish eye is mind-boggling.  And mere sensitivity to light is categorically different from what a true eye produces:  a mental image or a visual experience, which leads us to the next item on our list.

6. The Emergence of Consciousness – Not only is it impossible for Darwinism to explain how brains first produced awareness and cognition, but Darwinism cannot tell us why this extraordinary capacity should evolve.  Philosopher of mind David Chalmers puts it like this:  “The process of natural selection cannot distinguish between me and my zombie twin.  Evolution selects properties according to their functional role, and my zombie twin performs all the functions that I perform just as well as I do…  It follows that evolution alone cannot explain why conscious creatures rather than zombies evolved” (from The Conscious Mind [Oxford, 1996], p. 120)

7. Sexual Reproduction – The evolutionary development of reproductive organs that are morphologically and physiologically complimentary is unthinkable.  Evolutionary biologists tend to focus on the value of sexual reproduction for strengthening species.  But this is not the point at issue.  The question is how the mechanism could emerge in the first place and how such massively complex reproductive systems could change so dramatically in parallel (mutually complimentary) fashion.

8. The Cambrian Explosion – Classical Darwinism predicted that the geological strata (layers of rock in the Earth’s crust) would reveal a gradual increase of complexity in living forms.  With the advance of geology and paleontology, exactly the opposite was discovered.  The earliest strata in which multi-cellular life appears, Cambrian period, features a sudden appearance of very complex organisms.

9. The Lack of Intermediate Fossil Forms – In addition to the problem of sudden appearance of complex life, there is the stunning lack of fossil evidence for intermediate forms between the classes of animals, e.g. from reptile to bird (sorry, Archaeopteryx is a true bird), reptile to mammal, land mammal to sea mammal (cow to whale?), etc.  Darwin himself seemed to sense the seriousness of this problem:  “Why … is not every geological formation and every stratum full of… intermediate links?  Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory” (The Origin of Species [Penguin, 1968], p. 292).

10. Self-Defeating Implications – Philosopher Alvin Plantinga has brilliantly demonstrated that a naturalistic Darwinist perspective undermines itself.  If all aspects of living organisms were produced solely because of their survival value, then this means that even human cognition exists just because it is practical in this way.  But nowhere in this account is there a concern for truth as an aim of cognition.  In short, if human cognition (e.g., beliefs, reasoning, concept formation, etc.) were produced through evolution, then we have no reason to trust its capacity to produce true beliefs.  So we have no grounds for trusting any of our beliefs, including our theories about origins.  This means that if Darwinism is true then we have no reason to believe that it is true.  G.K. Chesterton seems to have glimpsed this point when he said, “Evolution is a good example of that modern intelligence which, if it destroys anything, destroys itself.  Evolution is either an innocent scientific description of how certain earthly things came about; or, if it is anything more than this, it is an attack upon thought itself” (Orthodoxy [Doubleday, 1908], 34).  Amen.

Posted on

Is Busyness the Modern Cross to Bear?

By Amy Spiegel

History is a fascinating business:  to see, with the 20/20 vision of the present, the themes of years past; to study eras from beginning to end with the comfortable assurance that you have already read the last page of the story and know whether the bad guys won or lost. Being a Christian brings, of course, an even great poignancy to the events of the past, because we believe that all of those events are leading toward something, serving a greater good.

I fear sometimes that my love of history taints my vision a bit. While my current surroundings seem bleak and dull, times of yore begin to appear rather rose colored. I look back longingly and see romance and sunshine rather than disease and deprivation. This starry-eyed longing for days gone by is usually directly proportional to the stress and frustration I am experiencing here and now. “Oh those pioneer women,” I say to myself, “they never had to deal with doctors’ waiting rooms and crowded grocery stores.” Of course, they also had to deliver their own babies, often dying in the process, and they had to eat whatever they could manage to grow themselves. When we near the end of some sports season or another (currently it’s soccer), I begin to corner Jim, threatening to pull the kids out of all their extracurricular activities and move to the backwaters of Montana, preferably with him. Whatever the cause, be it baseball, art lessons or just the social demands of life, I tend to see this harried pace as an obstacle to be overcome, a problem to be solved rather than just a characteristic element of everyday life in the 21st century. But perhaps that isn’t so.

Now there is busyness and there is busyness. Jim and I are fairly conservative with regards to outside stuff. We each have a regular Bible study and the kids have one or two outside commitments that we feel are important. While our schedule does take some organization of the You-pick-up-so-and-so-while-I-stay-at-home-with-everyone-else variety, it doesn’t require strategists from the Pentagon to plan or accomplish. So maybe all my complaining about the pace of modern life is chronological envy or simply ingratitude. Many of the technologies I grouse about (enrichment activities for the kids, slow internet connections, mini vans) bring with them a host of advantages that seem to be overlooked in my quest for “simplicity.” What would a pioneer woman have given to have been able to pile the kids in the car in order to meet a friend at the park, or to email her family thousands of miles away?

This is not to say that we should follow blindly after the latest thing just because we can. But perhaps I need to show a greater appreciation for the era in which I have been placed. It is unique, and a limited number of us will experience it first-hand. If God can speak to humanity through the Black Plague and the French Revolution, then surely He can make something beautiful out of Starbucks and mini vans. You just need the right perspective to see it.

Posted on

Book Review: nuChristian

By Jim Spiegel

I recently reviewed David Kinnaman’s UnChristian (see my September 7 post), which I found to be enlightening as well as misleading.  This week an interesting response to Kinnaman’s book hits the shelves: Russell Rathbun’s nuChristian (Judson Press).  Rathbun is an emergent pastor at the House of Mercy in St. Paul, Minnesota.  He is doing a blog tour and asked if he could make a stop here at Wisdom and Folly, so I’ve included below a short conversation.  But, first, a quick summary of the book…

NuChristianRGBIn nuChristian Rathbun aims to inspire a redemptive response to the grim statistics that Kinnaman discusses in UnChristian.  For the most part, Rathbun accepts the charges leveled against Christians by “outsiders,” as Kinnaman dubs unbelievers.  Yes, we are often hypocritical, judgmental, homophobic, and more concerned with making converts than loving people.  And in response to this we should seek to be open and honest about these failings, to be more authentic in our relationships with others, and to be more welcoming toward others, regardless of our differences.  Above all, we should seek the transforming love of God rather than an impossibly high standard of moral perfection.  To take such an approach, says Rathbun, is what it means to be a “nuChristian.”

Rathbun does, however, reject some of the charges in Kinnaman’s surveys.  For example, in regards to the notion that Christians are sheltered, Rathbun rightly finds the idea preposterous.  Given the media saturation of all Westerners, through television, Hollywood films, and the internet, Rathbun asks, “how could anyone remain sheltered from the world?” (62).  At the same time, he observes, too many churches make superficial efforts at being “culturally relevant,” only to reveal their ignorance about culture.  Here Rathbun makes an insightful distinction between cultural relevance and cultural literacy.  Even if one can achieve the former, this far from guarantees the latter.

Rathbun also challenges the claim that Christians are too involved in politics.  On the contrary, he says, “it seems to me that the problem isn’t that Christians are too political; it may be that they’re not political enough.  The Christian political spokespeople who make the most noise and have received the most media coverage are not engaged in true politics, but in incendiary ideological rhetoric” (72).  Well put.  If only we could hear more from the likes of Marvin Olasky, Jean Bethke Elshtain, and Jay Budziszewksi, then outsiders might clamor for more, not less, Christian political input.

Finally, I especially appreciated Rathbun’s take on evangelism.  As he puts it, “We are not called to save people; we are called to love people.  You don’t love people by trying to sell them something or convince them of something….  Love does not have an ulterior motive” (40).  And elsewhere, he comments on the Great Commission in Matthew 28, saying “Making disciples sounds a lot more like the process of loving people, serving people, being with people, and teaching them…than it does getting someone to make a verbal commitment…regarding the eternal state of his or her soul” (41).

As is always the case when I read emergent stuff, I found myself disagreeing with some of aspects of nuChristian as well.  However, rather than simply state my criticisms here, I decided to give the author an opportunity to respond to my critical points, which I offered to Rathbun as challenges in our conversation below.  As you’ll see, his responses are thoughtful and gracious.

Spiegel: You say “a nuChristian does not seek moral or ethical perfection any more than he seeks to love perfectly of his own accord” (p. xi).  So how does this square with Jesus’ admonition to “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt. 5:48) as well as many other biblical passages which so strongly emphasize moral sanctification (cf. 1 Cor. 9:24-27 and 1 Tim. 4:7-8)?

Rathbun: I think it is a good point.  The context of that verse in Matthew is that Jesus is telling them to love their enemies and then goes on to tell them not to practice their righteousness in public like the Pharisees.  Are we supposed to do that on our own?  I don’t have the ability.

Spiegel: In chapter two you propose looking at Scripture “not as a book of answers, but as a book of really good questions” (p. 18).  While this is an interesting angle of approach, don’t you commit the (rather modern) fallacy of false dichotomy in suggesting that we must take one of these two approaches (as opposed to seeing the Bible in neither of these ways but rather, say, as a collection of literary genres in which God’s truth is made known in a variety of ways)?  Or, to challenge you in another way, isn’t the notion that the Bible is a book of questions just as reductionist as the “answer book” approach (and for this reason just as problematic)?

Rathbun: Yes, it is.  You are right.

Spiegel: Having written a book on the subject of hypocrisy, I was especially interested to read chapter 3 of nuChristian, in which you deal with this topic.  I appreciated many of your points and insights.  However, I was concerned that you miscategorized Peter’s sin of denying Christ as hypocrisy (cf. p. 33).  It seems to me (as I claim  in my book) that Peter’s problem is actually moral weakness rather than hypocrisy.  The difference is that a hypocrite intends to deceive others rather than to do the good, while someone who is morally weak intends to do the good but succumbs to temptation because of a weak will.  What do you think about this?

Rathbun: I haven’t read your book, but it sounds interesting.  One can define a word in many different ways.  Of course words have different shades of meaning and a writer or a thinker or a preacher emphasizes different shades to explore a particular issue in a particular way.  I was exploring the idea that most people don’t actually try to deceive others but are unclear about an issue themselves.  I think we act out of self-interest and lack of self awareness.  What is moral weakness?  We all give in to temptation because of a weak will.  I don’t know if I even believe in the notion that we have a will that can be strong or believe that if we could have a strong will that would be a good thing.  God is weak, continually goes back on his commitment to justice and what is morally right by not punishing humanity for our transgressions.  God destroys the world by flood because of humanity’s wickedness.  Then when humanity continues to be wicked after that, God basically says, “Well, I don’t want to destroy them, even if they continue to act wickedly”  We might think of that as giving in, lack of consistent consequences, maybe even moral weakness.  Of course we are not God and my particular take on the subject is just one.

Spiegel: In chapter five you discuss judgmentalism and emphasize that as Christians we should not judge others, that judging is the “opposite of love,” etc.  But there are two senses of judgment:  1) judgment as condemnation (cf. Luke 6:37) and 2) judgment as discernment.  The former is inappropriate, while the latter is essential to the moral life, as is evident in Paul’s admonition to judge others in the church in such passages as 1 Cor. 5:3, 12; 1 Cor. 6:2-5.  Shouldn’t this be borne in mind when we consider that “outsiders” often criticize Christians for being judgmental?  Perhaps they are sometimes judging us (in the sense of condemnation) for simply using good judgment (in the sense of discernment)!

Rathbun: I personally don’t have the capacity to judge people without acting self interestedly.  I am judgmental and I lack discernment.  Also, I say there are many other things to work out in our own faith before we get to discerning the actions of others.

Posted on

Conversations with Your Celestial Shoulder Buddy

By Amy Spiegel

If you have read our blog much, you know that I am a film lover. As such, I have had more than one opportunity to ponder the question, When is graphic content of a film necessary for the story and when it is merely gratuitous? I must confess to have such a weakness for narrative that too often I have continued to watch despite the little “angel” sitting on my shoulder telling me certain movies have crossed the line.

thumbnailCANVAE3WWhen I sat down to watch The Kite Runner, a movie I hadn’t gotten around to seeing despite having heard great things, I wasn’t expecting to face such a value judgment. The story of two Afghan friends whose lives have gone in very different directions hardly seemed a likely candidate for overly explicit material. Perhaps that is why the scene which depicted the brutal assault of one friend by a gang of older boys was so jarring. While I appreciated the overall message of redemption and courage, days later it was that one scene that kept replaying in my head rather than those which helped further the film’s message.

I have seen much worse by way of abusive behavior but somehow this stuck me in a way that other more graphic scenes had not. This realization, that the entire movie was overshadowed by what was really a peripheral moment in the film, has helped to crystallize for me where I draw the line between warranted and unwarranted explicit content in a film.

A few months back, Jim and I were visiting my mom and dad and I was given the herculean task of choosing a movie we might all enjoy. I finally settled on Taken, figuring that, even if everyone didn’t love it, at least no one would hate it. For action and suspense, it was surprisingly (at least to me) good. One thing we all noted was the restraint the filmmakers showed in portraying the plight of women in the sex trade. It would have been easy to throw in some nudity and sexual content and exploit the situation the movie was trying to speak out against. The lack of graphic content didn’t take anything away from the plot and gave credibility to the filmmakers.

I realize that there can be no hard and fast rule when it comes to the subjective responses each individual has. Everyone has different limits and reactions to film and must judge what they can handle. But I do think taking into consideration how certain content enhances or takes away from the thread of a story helps at least in evaluating the intention of the filmmakers and therefore may help us in evaluating a film’s aesthetic values apart from our personal response. Some stories are so shockingly horrific that they require shockingly graphic material in order to help you understand the experience of the characters. I remember seeing an interview with one of the makers of To End All Wars, a film about the treatment of Allied POWs by the Japanese in WWII. The makers of the film were Christians and had apparently been criticized for how much violence they included in the film. What the director said in response has stuck with me and though I can’t recall his exact words it was something to the effect that they didn’t feel they could depict the courage and grace of the POWs without depicting the brutality they endured. The film was indeed violent but not in a way that screamed “Look, we are showing you violence now.” It was completely appropriate to the subject matter and rather than making you a voyeur, it gave you a greater empathy for the characters. And this should be the point of all film, transporting you into another reality, broadening your understanding of the experience of others and the truths that weave through each of our stories.

Too often I hear people completely shutting themselves off to great films because they consider them too graphic and yet they watch absolute drivel simply because it’s PG. The damage that is done to their aesthetic sense has to be at least as great as any damage they might have sustained in watching Brad Pitt’s men scalp Nazis (Yes, the Inglourious Basterds review is coming soon; have patience).

So the next time your celestial shoulder buddy pops up with a caution, listen to your aesthetic sense as well as your conscience and remember to watch with artistic as well as moral eyes wide open.

Posted on

Hodgepodge #2

By Jim Spiegel

Reflections by Jim of different sorts—on music, nature, books, and sports

In the last few weeks I have attended two excellent concerts.  On September 12 I saw U2 in Chicago, as they commenced their 360° tour—a predictably fine show by the beloved Irish foursome. This was my fifth time to see them live, and while falling short of the magic of the Joshua Tree tour (what could live up to that?), they remain the greatest live band on the planet.  Also, last week I attended my first Kings of Leon show—at the Verizon Center in Noblesville, Indiana.  Lead singer Caleb Followill said it was the biggest crowd they’d ever played for.  Indeed, it was a sprawling sea of humanity, half of us slip-sliding in the muddy lawn area.  K.O.L. played a strong 20-song set, living up to their reputation as the heir-apparent to U2’s throne.  We’ll see about that.

250px-Orb_weaver_black_bckgrnd03_cropLast week Amy and I were back in Chicago, this time for her best friend’s wedding.  We stayed high atop the downtown Holiday Inn overlooking the Chicago River.  Just outside our 17th story window an Orb Weaver spider (Araneidae family) was perched in the middle of a giant web, which we measured at 3 x 2.5 feet.  Judging by the spider’s bulky appearance, s/he had managed to catch plenty of bugs way up there.  Early the next morning I marveled at the massive buildings in downtown Chicago.  In doing so, I looked through that Orb Weaver’s giant web, and then it struck me.  Both were magnificent feats of engineering, and they shared some of the same structural features: footings, girders, and symmetrical design.  And both ultimately testify to the genius of our common Creator.

I recently posted a review on David Kinnaman’s book unChristian, which has generated a lot of conversation in the last year or so.  Among the authors responding to this book is Russell Rathbun, who has recently authored unChristian: Finding Faith in a New Generation.  (Judson Press).  I have been invited to participate in Rathbun’s blog tour, so I will comment on the book and interact with him the week of October 12.  Rathbun is an emergent church pastor and author, so I’m very curious to see his response to unChristian.  Stay tuned.

Finally, the major league baseball season is drawing to a close, and as I write this my Detroit Tigers’ lead in the American League central division has dwindled to one game, with two games left in the season for both the Tigers and the Minnesota Twins, who have been hotly pursuing them the last three weeks.  Having had my baseball heart twice broken by the Twins—in ’87 when they drubbed Detroit in the ALCS and in ’91 when they squeaked by the Braves (also a rooting interest of mine)—I am quite keen on seeing the Tigers return the favor, if just for this season.  Will they do it?  Time, as they say, will tell.