The Kids Are All Right

If you don't know anything about Christianity in general or Evangelicalism in particular, you won't know what to make of what's going on at Asbury University, a small, conservative Methodist college in Kentucky.*

Here is what happened. This comes from Dr. Thomas McCall, a theology professor at Asbury Theological Seminary.

"Most Wednesday mornings at Asbury University are like any other. A few minutes before 10, students begin to gather in Hughes Auditorium for chapel. Students are required to attend a certain number of chapels each semester, so they tend to show up as a matter of routine.**

But this past Wednesday was different. After the benediction, the gospel choir began to sing a final chorus—and then something began to happen that defies easy description. Students did not leave. They were struck by what seemed to be a quiet but powerful sense of transcendence, and they did not want to go. They stayed and continued to worship. They are still there."

People have begun to talk and are trying to evaluate what the, uh, heck, is going on at Asbury. Some say it is The Holy Spirit. Some say it is just youthful emotionalism. 

 

 

Dr. McCall continues, "I teach theology across the street at Asbury Theological Seminary, and when I heard of what was happening, I immediately decided to go to the chapel to see for myself. When I arrived, I saw hundreds of students singing quietly. They were praising and praying earnestly for themselves and their neighbors and our world—expressing repentance and contrition for sin and interceding for healing, wholeness, peace, and justice."

Of course, our virtual public square, Twitter, has commented. 

One guy, a Baptist, posted a Tweet that criticized the kids for not using the King James Version of the Bible. He also noted, to his horror, that some of the kids were Methodists. You know how they are.

Mike Cosper tweeted, "Christian Twitter’s response to the Asbury Revival is a vivid case study in disenchantment. The need to posture, condescend, add an asterisk, and otherwise position oneself above the situation is ultimately an effort to make meaning of it within immanence."

I don't know what "an effort to make meaning of it with immanence" means, but I think he's saying don't make a big deal out of a bunch of Gen  Z kids not reading the King James Version of The Bible out loud.

Here's my opinion, in the words of Pink Floyd: Leave them kids alone.

The senior class at Asbury University entered school in the fall of 2019. Then, in the spring of 2020, Covid hit. I'm unsure how Asbury handled it, but I'm sure classes were held virtually. 

Of course, everybody had to wear a mask. Everybody was isolated in one way or another.

On top of that, the past seven or so years have been continuous. Everybody is yelling at everybody else because they simply hate each other. There are wars and rumors of wars, and now, oh Lord, there are balloons.

The Millennials had to move back home to make ends meet. Gen Z couldn't even leave the house.

Back in my insurance days, one of my co-workers would say, "There's got to be a better way."  That's what the kids of Asbury are saying.

 

 

Again from Dr. McCall. "Some are calling this a revival, and I know that in recent years that term has become associated with political activism and Christian nationalism. But let me be clear: no one at Asbury has that agenda. As an analytic theologian, I am weary of hype and very wary of manipulation. I come from a background (in a particularly revivalist segment of the Methodist-holiness tradition) where I’ve seen efforts to manufacture “revivals” and “movements of the Spirit” that were sometimes not only hollow but also harmful. I do not want anything to do with that.

And truth be told, this is nothing like that. There is no pressure or hype. There is no manipulation. There is no high-pitched emotional fervor.

 

To the contrary, it has so far been mostly calm and serene. The mix of hope and joy and peace is indescribably strong and indeed almost palpable—a vivid and incredibly powerful sense of shalom. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is undeniably powerful but also so gentle."

 

It is wild to think the Spirit of God would come to a small school in Kentucky when it could come to the red carpet at The Oscars and have everybody experience it.  But God moves in mysterious ways, and his still, small voice is saying the kids are all right.

 

Footnotes

*Here's a fun fact. The school was named after Francis Asbury, a famous Methodist preacher. Do you know who else was named after Francis Asbury?  NFL Hall Of Famer Fran Tarkington.

 

**When I went to Louisiana College, we had chapels and boy were they routine. 

 

Rock On, Eddie Vedder

Bob Dylan said in one of his bootleg songs, "Death kept followin', tracking us down".  Last week, death tracked down a friend of my son. His name was Miles.

When a young man dies, it is generally from an accident, like a car wreck. Sometimes it is from drugs. Sometimes it is from being in the wrong place at the wrong time and a gun goes off. Sometimes it is war.

It was nothing like that with Miles. He had breakfast with his wife and then went into another room to practice his guitar. He never came out. 

He was thirty-two years old.

In middle school and high school, kids try to find their niche. For some it is sports. For some it is studies.  But for others, it is rock and roll. Miles was all about rock and roll. He came by it honestly. His dad was a good musician and Miles began playing the guitar and bass.

Miles went to the same church we did and I knew Miles from The Student Ministry where I helped out being "one of the Dads".  I'm not sure what the Dads actually did.  Our mere presence probably prevented all sorts of teenage Baptist debauchery. (By the way, Teenage Baptist Debauchery would be a good name for a band.)

Miles plugged in his guitar and helped with the Wednesday Night Worship Band that was sometimes sloppy but they made up for it by being loud.

It was there I saw that Miles had talent. Oh yeah, the boy could  play.

Trying to be hip to the young whippersnapper,  I called Miles "Eddie Vedder", after the frontman for Pearl Jam . He laughed and called me "Eddie Vedder" too. Soon, we were both calling each other Eddie Vedder. Thinking about that in this sad time makes me smile.

You think you know the kids your kid hangs around, but you really don't. You are an adult and you like Jimmy Buffett and have Plantar Facitis.  But this I know about Miles. He was always a polite and nice kid that could absolutely shred an electric guitar.

Rock on, Eddie Vedder. Rock on.

 

Here They Come

 

 

Oh boy! Can't you feel the excitement?

Next year, The Republican Party will nominate a candidate for President. Here's a quick look at the potential candidates and their odds of winning the nomination.

Former President Donald J. Trump.  He's been running since he left D.C. without bothering to go to Joe Biden's Inauguration. Since then, he's been commenting daily on how the election was stolen from him. Yadda, yadda, yadda.  He's got a strong hold of about 35% of The GOP electorate, which considers everybody a RINO  except for Trump. So it becomes a matter of simple math. If the GOP field includes a bunch of candidates, Trump will win. If not, and the GOP fields only a couple of candidates, things get dicier for Trump to win. A lot of people are already anointing him as the nominee mainly because Trump tends to get what Trump wants (Casinos, Super Models, Porn Stars, and the Presidency)  I'm not so sure.  There's a "been there-done that" vibe to this time around.  Trump is doing the same shtick he's always done and voters might be tired of it in 2024

Gov. Ron DeSantis.  The Florida governor is not like the last Florida governor Trump beat up in 2016.  He's young and intelligent.  He's attracting negative attention on Twitter because he's seen as the heir apparent to Trump and is quickly becoming The Florida Man Hitler. If he gets Trump one-on-one early, I think he can become the nominee. If not, he'll get lost because his vote will be split between the other Non-Trump candidates.

 

 

Sen. Ted Cruz.   The guy who came in second in 2016.  In the world BT (Before Trump), Cruz would be the nominee because the GOP always nominated The Guy Who Came In Second the next time.Think of Romney, McCain, Dole, and Dad Bush. (Bill Clinton's great quote: "Democrats fall in love and Republicans fall in line".)  Even though he is very intellegent, Cruz has one of the most punchable faces in politics since Richard Nixon. Sorry, Ted, you don't have a prayer.

 

 

 

Gov. Chris Christie.  Way back when, this blog predicted that Chris Christie would become President simply because he was the exact opposite of President Obama.  Turns out another husky loud mouth won instead.  Christie tried to help Trump, which Trump listened to maybe twenty per-cent of the time.  Christie had the best line about Trump as President when he said Trump reminded him of a salesman that worked out of the trunk of his car.  Christie is bright and articulate.  He is also fat—William Howard Taft fat.  Body shaming will come back in style if Christie becomes the nominee.  Can Christie win? Fat chance. (Sorry)

 

 

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.  Here's how I knew Pompeo would run for President: he lost a lot of weight.  He looks good and could be a spokesman for Nutrisystem if the Presidential thing doesn't work out. Which it probably won't.  Pompeo is another one of those success stories- he graduated first in his class from West Point, he was a Congressman, along with being Secretary of State. He definitely has the candle power to be President.  However, he doesn't give out hats like Trump does. He could, maybe, possibly, become Trump's 2.0 running mate.  I just don't see him winning.

 

 

Ambassador Nikki Haley.  I find Haley's candidacy exciting  and I'm not just saying that because she's easy on the eyes, unlike the rest the candidates.  She would flip the script with all of the smarty-pants Ivy League school Twitter kids who paint the Republicans as old fat white men who listen to Classic Rock.  She has immigrant parents and probably knows a little about football despite going to Clemson. (Editor's Note: This joke would have been a lot funnier if Haley went to the University of South Carolina.) It's going to be hard to paint her as a female Hitler, but one thing we've learned about the late millennials and Gen-Zers is they are very creative. She could win if DeSantis flames out and it becomes a choice between a pretty young woman and an old fat man.

 

 

Vice President Mike Pence.  One of the two people the MAGA Mob  despises, above all others, even more than Mitch McConnell, is Mike Pence (the other one is Liz Cheney). Mike didn't go along with Trump's concoction about the 2020 election and that put Pence on the bad list.  You would think it would put him on the good list with other people. It doesn't work that way.  It will be interesting to see Trump go after Pence in the debates. Trump will call him disloyal-remind Pence that he found Pence in the gutter selling pencils and made him Vice President.  For this  entertainment value alone, Pence should run.  Pence's chances: slim to none and Slim has left town.

 

Take It Easy

 

 

 

Here's something I don't like: people announcing they do not like a singer or band with the clear meaning that if you like the singer or band there is something wrong with you.  Unfortunately, I do this too, but I'm trying to get better. Honest.

I first noticed it in the movie "What About Bob".  Bill Murray played a goofball under the psychiatric care of Dr. Richard Dreyfuss. Dreyfuss asked about Murray's last girlfriend. Murray said he ended it because there are two kinds of people on earth: those that like Neil Diamond and those that don't. She liked Neil Diamond.

After that, I started hearing many people saying they didn't like Neil Diamond. That's like saying you don't like popcorn.

Soon the movie "The Big Lebowski" came out, and "The Dude" profanely said he hated the Eagles.

Again, saying you hate the Eagles is like saying you don't like popcorn or clouds. The Eagles were popular because they were good. You could sing along with them, particularly Glenn Frey.

I guess I'm defensive about the Eagles because there was a time when they were not on the radio.  But then came "Take It Easy".

Yes, "Take It Easy", the song that put Winslow, Arizona, on the map.  Winslow has a statue of a guy at a corner with a flatbed Ford nearby. When my son and daughter-in-law drove around Arizona on a trip, I asked if they went to see Winslow, Arizona.  My daughter-in-law said she nixed it because it was three hours out of their way.

It was probably the first country rock song I heard on WFOM-1230, the Top Forty station for Cobb County.  It had electric guitars, drums, and a banjo. Frey sang about running down the road, trying to loosen his load with seven women on his mind.  Only one of those women he seemed to like.

Then  Frey announces he's standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, and sees a fine sight:  a girl in a flatbed Ford.

As a seventh grader in Cobb County, I wondered how exactly do you end up in Winslow, Arizona and do they lots of girls driving flatbed Fords and would they slow down to look at a short, pimply kid with thick glasses. (Inside my seventh grade mind: probably)

I learned later that Jackson Browne co-wrote this song with Glenn Frey.  He had hit with "Doctor My Eyes".  He was a serious guy that wrote serious songs. I didn't know they knew each other. Probably neighbors at The Hotel California. (Sorry)

In "Take It Easy", Browne says, "Lighten up while you still can".

You read and hear a lot today about the unrest in the country. Some say we are heading to another Civil War.  I doubt that.  I lived through the '60s and the early '70s.

Back then, you had The Vietnam War. You may have heard of it, it was in all of the papers. The War caused protests and a lot of bad folk songs.

Kids were taking drugs and boys were growing "that old long hair".  There were all of these "liberation fronts," each with its own flag and hand signal.

It was intense. So intense Jackson Browne had to tell you to "lighten up".

You never saw Jackson Browne smile or laugh or tell a joke. He was telling us to lighten up.

That's the advice I remember from this song.  Whenever the latest controversy du jour hits,  I think of Jackson and Glenn telling us to lighten up.

It is good advice.

The Old, Old Story

 

 

There's a reason why "Christian" movies aren't very good. It usually has to do with the writing, directing, music, cinematography, and acting.

However, there's a show that's streaming now called The Chosen and it is about Jesus and the Apostles. It is an excellent series that even ye of little faith could watch and enjoy.

Movies about Jesus tell more about the movie maker than they do about Jesus and The Chosen is no different. The creator, Dallas Jenkins, is an Evangelical Christian and takes the view that Jesus was the Messiah and not some fancy Democrat that has nifty parlor tricks.

Jesus is one cool dude in The Chosen. He laughs, eats, and plays chicken in the Sea Of Galilee. The actor that plays Jesus. Jonathan Roumie is, uh, perfect. 

You meet his disciples. Peter, James, John, etc. They seem like regular guys and they bicker and complain about the work. One of the disciples, Matthew, seems like he walked out of a first-century version of The Big Bang Theory. 

 

The one bad apple, Judas, is portrayed as a nice guy, not the sort of guy who would betray you with a kiss.

Now, here's the meat of the post. I will comment on what I think is good in The Chosen and what is not so good.

It is difficult to critique Christian movies because the intent of the moviemakers is good because they do not want to make a lot of money. Instead, they are spreading the "gospel" through film. Plus, and this is a big deal, most Christian moviemakers do not have the budget that the Marvel Universe has.  This makes the movies look "cheap"

You end up watching the movie thinking, "considering everything, it's not that bad of a movie".

You don't have to worry about that with The Chosen.  It is very well made.

 

 Now, here are some of the problems with The Chosen.

There's a lot of padding in The Chosen. Thomas has a girlfriend. Peter's wife has a miscarriage. James and John have a father who quit his fishing business to grow olives with the help of Mary Magdalene. Unfortunately, none of this is in the Bible.

One episode dealt with Jesus and his memories of his earthly father, Joseph. But, again, the Bible doesn't tell us a lot about Joseph. Of course, it was dramatic and all that, but still, it is not from The Bible.

On social media, there were some complaints about Matthew helping Jesus with The Sermon on The Mount. I didn't get that Matthew was ghostwriting the sermon for Jesus, but some did and I need to watch it again.

Then there was Jesus playing chicken.  I was a history major in college. I've never run across anyone saying Jesus played chicken.  I'm not saying he didn't. I don't even know if they played chicken in the First Century. But it is important to note that if Jesus played chicken, somebody would have mentioned it in the Gospels.

 

That's the real problem with The Chosen. In order to make Jesus like one us, sometimes they make him look sort of silly.  In one episode, he meets a blind woman and her sort of boyfriend.  The boyfriend is lame, as the Bible would say. Jesus gives sight to the blind woman (she has a great line when she tells the boyfriend, "You're not as handsome as you said you were") and as they was walking away he heals the boyfriend as sort of a "why not" miracle.

 

Another issue that I have is that some of the language does not sound "Biblical".  No, there are no bad words and there are no "thees and thous".  But, some of the dialogue sounds like it came from around the water cooler. I'm sure it is intentional.  Yet, I doubt the word "integral" was used in the First Century, like it was in a recent episode.  (I'm sure someone will go to the Greek to prove that I am wrong.)

Even with all of this, The Chosen is a heaven of a good show. 

 

Glory Redux

 

The fans of the Georgia Bulldogs and, indeed, the entire state of Georgia owe the 2022 edition a great amount of gratitude.

After last week, when Georgia somehow, someway, defeated Ohio State based on an errant field goal, this state could not take another nail-biter. Especially to a team from The Big 12 Conference, which the SEC sort of looks at like the way the Atlanta Braves looks at The Montgomery Biscuits.

It's not that TCU was a lousy team. Shoot, they beat Michigan, which had defeated Ohio State. But, like Georgia, they have gotten lucky in a couple of games, like the one against Baylor, where they won on a field goal that looked like The Three Stooges designed it.

TCU's quarterback,  Max Duggan, finished second in The Heisman Trophy balloting. That means football fans that many people who know what they are talking about think he is a good quarterback.  And he is.

But this 2023 College Football Championship was just too big of a stage for Duggan and the rest of the Horned Toads. Yes, I giggle every time I say "Horned Toads".   

Georgia, on the other hand, seemed right at home.  They won it last year against the Crimson Tide, which was a big deal.  Georgia hadn't won a championship since January 1, 1981.  Jimmy Carter was still President.

TCU hoped to win. Georgia expected to win.  

I don't know if Stetson Bennett IV is the greatest quarterback in recorded history. But I know he won't have to buy a meal in any restaurant in the state of Georgia for the rest of his life.

There's something about his story. The walk-on that somehow becomes first string and leads his team to two national championships. It says a lot about him that he didn't dump football because he had a lot of opportunities to do so, and nobody would have blamed him if he did.

But he didn't, and he scored two touchdowns last night. (It seems like everybody scored two touchdowns last night. If Uga X had been there, he would have scored two touchdowns.)

The Georgia defense was more than great. They were stifling. Just when it looked like TCU might get something going, they didn't.  They made only one mistake all night, which led to TCU's only score.

It is safe to say that Kirby Smart has his place safely inside the pantheon of great Georgia coaches.  He had his team prepared, which is the greatest compliment you can give a coach.

The morning after, the media was filled with the usual media stuff. Drunk idiot college kids hooping and hollering in front of a TV camera.  Sports talking heads debating this question: Is Nick Saban still THE GOAT (Greatest Of All Time), or is it Kirby Smart?

All I know is winning is better than losing.  Most of the time, the teams I've rooted for has been on the losing end of a beat-down like this. Think of The Atlanta Falcons. Think of The Atlanta Braves. Think of The Atlanta Hawks.  Georgia overcame the powerful Manis Loser Rays.

Georgia fans should enjoy the victory.  Here in the Atlanta area, we have a lot of fans of the other schools who do not like the barking, the woofing, and the hunker downing.

When you win back-to-back championships, you can bark all you want.

Songs I Like: "Brown Eyed Girl"

 

 

 

Welcome to a new Humor Me feature: "Songs I Like".

It will be about songs I like (duh) and will appear whenever. No set schedule.

One of the inspirations for this is the new book by Bob Dylan called "The Philosophy Of Modern Song".  Like most of Dylan's work, it is one part brilliant and one part "whut?".  It is sixty-six essays on sixty-six songs.  It contains no "philosophy," but all of the essays are united by the fact Dylan has heard the song or at least heard about it though with some of them it is hard to tell

The other inspiration is a little Facebook post I've been doing weekly for the past five years called The Lyric Challenge, in which I post six lyrics and ask people to name the song and the artist.  

It has been a fun little exercise where I implant earworms into people and they hear The Carpenter's version of "A Kind Of Hush" all day.

The first song: "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison.

 "Brown Eyed Girl" is probably the first Van Morrison song I have ever heard.  It is perhaps his most famous song. Of course, Van hates it.

Van wrote and recorded "BEG" after signing a contract with Bert Berns who owned a record label called BANG.  (Can you name the other big time singer on the BANG label?  The answer will be at the end of this post.)

Berns figured out a way to have someone write and sing a song without paying any royalties. Because Van did not make any money off the song, he didn't want to sing it.

So over the years, Van has refused to play "BEG".  However, he has loosened up in his later years, and now how finishes his concerts with "BEG", although it doesn't sound exactly like it does on the radio.

Supposedly, the song was supposed to be called "Brown Skinned Girl" and was about an interracial love affair.  I don't know if that's true. Van hasn't said.

To me, the song is about memory. "Do you remember when we used to sing?".  He lists everything he remembers: the waterfall, the transistor radio, and "making love in the green grass behind the stadium".

When I was coming along, kids would tell stories about running across boys and girls getting busy.   I mean, it was the 70s and clothes were just falling off people.  But I never ran across anybody doing it, and I lived across the street from a high school.

I guess that if you made love in the green grass behind the stadium, you would remember it when you saw your former lover just the other day

Van went from making no money with his most popular song to become a famous singer.  He made a string of albums, starting with "Astral Weeks",  that are total classics.

My wife and I saw Van in concert in Alpharetta last year.  He played the saxophone and sang for two hours, which is pretty good for a 77 year old man.

What makes "BEG" different from other Van Morrison songs  is that it almost sounds happy.  Morrison is known to be a bit of a grump. Don Imus used to say Van led a complicated life.  That may be correct, but Van wrote a great song about something simple: nostalgia.

 

*The other big time singer on the BANG record label was Neil Diamond.