Contrary to public opinion, I think the Bachelor and the Bachelorette are important shows. Seriously? You ask.

This post started because my friend Kate Murray shared her thoughts on the show. She said:

Last night I watched the Bachelorette.  I never watch the Bachelorette.  I don’t know what got into me, but I sat on the couch, for two hours, listening to the guys “tell all” and recount their stories from the season.  Mostly I watched as they and this season’s Bachelorette, Ali, spoke of finding love and her quest to find the man of her dreams.

But as I watched, I thought about how different their experiences have been from my own – and if any relationship that begins in such a setting (not only in exotic locations, but on national TV) can survive the reality of life (most don’t – I think only two or three couples have actually made it down the aisle and are still together).

Her observations made me thing of another show I watch with my kids.  It’s called Wipeout. Contestants navigate an obstacle course and get pummeled a long the way. What I’ve noticed is that the course is designed to produce moments of hilarious pummeling. In other words, its designed for the laugh, not the contestants.  There are points in the course that the contestants simply can’t get by without experiencing a dramatic wipeout, hence the name.

The producers of Wipeout are smart because they pick really interesting, and rather kooky people who are willing to look silly on tv.  Those willing to make fun of themselves have the chance to win 50 thousand dollars. They highlight those willing to make fun of themselves. Its no unusual for contestants to dance in costumes, shout native calls, talk about their desire for breast reduction surgery (a male), and show their ninja skills.

I’ve watched the Bachelor and the Bachelorette in the past and I can help but wonder the same thing. The show is not really designed to produce relationship. It’s designed to produce a moment where we cringe, guffaw, and laugh AT the contestants. Both shows are like a pressure cookers designed to produce cringe worthy moments where someone melts down on television.  Those are the moments everyone talks about on Twitter and Facebook.  “Did you see that guy last night get the tattoo for the girl.  LOSER.”  We’re in on the gag because we now know from the history of the show that no matter how much they think its real, it is not.  No matter how much they try, there is a high degree of probability that they will not make it.  In other words, the show is for our experience, not the contestants.

I think we watch because the show gives us our dream scenario.  Contestants are given dream situations for their dates, romantic possibilities that only a few could experience, and are then expected to make a choice that is largely undignifying no matter how much they rationalize it.  But if the dream does anything it shows that it more likely a nightmare.

But as I was reading some critical pushback from some well meaning people, a thought occurred to me.  If the problem was located where our traditional theories suggest (Satan or God) why does the problem persist?  If Jesus is satisfying Satan’s demands, or satisfying God’s own demands for justice, why then doesn’t the problem go away?  Because we don’t have to look very far to see oppression, suffering, injustice, and cruelty in our world.  The problem is still there.

But if the problem is in humanity, is speaks deeply to why the problem continues to persist.  The problem is not resolved in each human being until they wrestle with the problem inside. It doesn’t go away until each of us resolves the problem of judgment we make about the self.  Are we good or evil.

We like to jump to conclusions, don’t we?

As I begin to share the contents of my book, Discovering The God Imagination: Reconstructing A Whole New Christianity, I’ve had several people comment on the Facebook page and a blog post I wrote for Emergent Village.  The first was from a gentleman who said:

“Here is another way to look at all this. What if we have gotten it all right? If you are teaching anything other than that Man is a sinner and God sent his Son to die a sinners death and that we have to Repent and believe in the shed blood of Jesus, anything else is WRONG!!. Usually when someone says we have been wrong distort the truth.”

Another gentleman said:

Another gentleman said:

“Professing them selves wise they became fools. There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is death. You are accountable to God for this convoluted effort to shape the “sparing not of His Son” into something that you “feel comfortable with” . You are preaching another Gospel! The offense of the cross is not in your message. Wow.”

I actually get these types of comments.  The immediate assumption is that what is new cannot possibly shed new light on the old, or even reframe it in a way that adds to conversation.  It’s just easier to stick with what has come in the past.  The problem is that none of these people have actually read the book.  Instead of jumping to conclusions, the harder thing to do is actually wrestling with the possibilities presented in the book. I just hope they do to see that their concerns are misplaced.

This is a very powerful video on people’s experiences of being judged, specifically within the church space.  I have felt some of these statements myself and have seen them in other people’s lives.  Not trying to be funny but I really loved the story of the guy who stole the Jesus statue for his grandmother.  Its sad that a little boy did something for such good reasons but it became one of the defining negative events of his lives.

Judgment is so destructive.  When we exclude someone from love, when we see someone as outside of the possibility of being loved, it ruins people.  I would suggest the people who are doing the judging are the one’s suffering more because they are likely unaware of what they are doing.  But in the end I think everyone falls into that category to an extent.

Love wins out in the end.

[Note: The above video contains graphic violence.]

Sometimes I wonder if our fear of hell in the afterlife is keeping us from seeing the reality of hell in this life.

Some of you may know that I spent some time working in Hollywood.  I wanted to be a screenwriter after growing up watching movies.  I was captivated by the storytelling process in a visual medium.  Two of my favorite directors were Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorcese. To this day A Clockwork Orange remains one of the most haunting movies I have ever seen. If Kubrick and Scorcese have done anything it is display the brutal reality of the human situation.  We like to kill each other, sometimes in horrific ways.  We don’t like the idea that we are capable of such madness, yet we watch it.

Well some guy decided to mash these two directors together using 34 of their films to produce three short segments.  What is brilliant about it is that it in a very simple way captures the madness that both directors seemed to present but in a very simple narrative.  By isolating the emotion, it magnifies the emotion.  The first section explores violence.  The second section explores madness.  And the third section explores the anger of loss.  In all three sections  I couldn’t help but see the reality of hell.

The second section is particularly interesting to me because it seems to explore the reality of our own brokenness.  I think the central question in the entire human story is, “Are we good or evil?”  And at certain times in our lives we are struck with consequences that actually suggest we are evil.  The expression on the characters faces provides an amazing glimpse into that moment.  This is the moment when we’re contemplating the need and want for redemption yet it seems beyond our grasp.  That is hell to me.  It’s that moment when we see ourselves as beyond the love of God, with no hope.  If we extend that thought to eternity, we are trapped.

What do you think of the video?  And if you’re so inclined, what do you think of hell?

Amnesty International from Digital District™ VFX Post-Pro on Vimeo.

This was exceptionally creative. How do you feel about the death penalty?

Sometimes I think God allows pain in order to get us to the point of admitting what we don’t want to admit.

Recently I was talking with some friends about some very important aspects of my life.  We were lamenting in some regards.  It was a very hard conversation but beautiful in many ways.  We were all sharing what was one our hearts and there was no holding back.  But at the same time it was the recognition that deep within we were hurting inside.

And one of my friends said, “I sometimes wonder if God failed?”

There was a long moment of silence as we all let the question sink in.  It wasn’t that we had reached a point of nihilism and wanted to give up on God.  It was that we had created a space of grace for someone to speak one of the deepest fears we had all felt.

I sometimes wondered if the disciples came to the same conclusion at Golgotha.  Seeing Jesus on the cross, I can imagine a few raising their hands at God in the heavens and saying, “Did you fail?”

I walked away recognizing that as much as my pain hurts, it also restores.  It frees my soul from my own bullshit.  It liberates me from pretension.  But it doesn’t leave me there.  Friday gave way to Sunday.  It calls me to resurrection and hope, to discover my own faith that comes FROM suffering.

What is the one question your suffering is creating?

A friend once said to me, “You think too much for people and it allows them to blame you when things go wrong.” To be honest, when my friend said it, it hurt.  I didn’t like it.  It stung me to the core.  But after getting over my own drama, I realized that it was probably one of the most important things anyone has ever said to me.  It forced me to confront my own BS and deal with my won issues.  I was creating my own problems.

What’s the one thing a friend has said to you that you didn’t like but has stuck with you?

Josh over at ThinkChristian has a provocative post on the BP oil spill.  He calls it the “Stain that won’t go away.”

“I’ve had more than a few people express intense psychological distress about the BP oil eruption in the Gulf of Mexico – and I live in the American Midwest, about a thousand miles from any physical hardship caused by the accident. Few times since 9/11 has a news event reverberated this profoundly in the minds of people who weren’t directly affected by it.

I think this mostly has to do with the fact that the story won’t go away. We live in a 60-second news cycle, in which most stories aren’t expected to last much longer than a tweet. No matter how horrible the details, the media always moves on.

This oil story is literally spreading. It won’t go away, and each failed attempt to plug the spewing well at the bottom of the gulf only heightens our existential anxiety. We even watch a live feed from an underwater rover at the site of the spill and wonder, “What if it can’t be fixed?””

I felt like this during 9/11 too. As removed as I was from it, I couldn’t ignore that it hit home.  It felt like a way up call of mega proportions. We don’t like problems we can’t fix.  We’re the “can do” country.  And now we’re on the world stage floundering in our own mess.

I can’t help but recognize that as much as I don’t like these things, they do have an upside.  They humble us.  They make us think.  They force us to set down our pride and recognize the problem. Problems like this force us to confront our addiction to oil.

If you haven’t seen this, plug in your zip code to get a perspective of how massive this problem is.

I still love Ted Haggard.

Out of Ur recently posted the announcement that Ted Haggard is starting a church.  And some people are not happy about it. It seems we’re still wrestling with the same problem.  We don’t really know how to restore our leaders.  If Haggard has done one thing it has been to expose the fallacy of our “restoration” process for fallen leaders.

It’s interesting to listen to those sit in positions of power and question what Ted is doing, even calling it stupid.  But what if this is really exposing the tension we have with grace.  If the church (and I know I’m generalizing) has done one thing is ignore the reality of grace.  It’s hard.  We don’t like it.  We hold onto the insane notion that pastors are super people.  And it ends up killing them.  When they fall, it requires years to build them back up.  But when if the reality is that what takes years to build back up is not the pastor, but our willingness to trust?

So I love Ted Haggard because he’s forcing us to wrestling with our own sense of grace.

How do you feel?

{AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)