All Saints Presbyterian Church

Laughing with the Devil: a review of "A Serious Man"

“The devil laughs because God’s world seems senseless to him; the angel laughs with joy because everything in God’s world has its meaning” Milan Kundera

Humor is a funny thing. A comedian tells two jokes; he invests each with all his skill, experience, and timing. One gets a laugh, the other falls flat. Why?

Joel and Ethan Coen have been telling us jokes cinematically for years, and I’ve laughed at them all from "Fargo" to "O Brother, Where art Thou?" But their latest attempt—"A Serious Man"—fell flat with me, and I’ve been wondering why. It’s a typical Coen brothers film with great camera work, crisp editing, and extraordinary casting. All the elements of good humor are there, so why am I not laughing?

Lesslie Newbigin at 100

"In the face of alarming statistics, secularist attacks, and media scaremongering, the church has an important ally in Lesslie Newbigin. His writings continue to call the church to its missionary vocation in the midst of cultural change and ideological pluralism."

Read the full Christianity Today profile here.

7 Deadly Sins - The Journal

 

The All Saints journal project on the Seven Deadly Sins arrives next Sunday (December 13). This 24 page digest explores each of the sins as we considered them together over the fall through original photography and writing. The journal marks All Saints first foray into the realm of “publishing,” and is hopefully the first of many more similar efforts to come. Easy to read, devotional, and pleasing to the eye - this tiny tome also makes a great gift. They’ll sell for $5. If you’re not in Austin and would like one, just email me and we can arrange for it. 

How fantastic is it?

What is a hipster? Is it people who read McSweeney’s? Listen to Brooklyn-based bands? Wear their suits cut just a little tight (preferably tailored by Band of Outsiders)? Or is it the new addition to the Wes Anderson canon of carefully stylized movies, "Fantastic Mr. Fox"? I must confess a love-hate relationship with all things hipster. My brother is a painter living in Brooklyn (hip), I teach at a Christian college (not hip), Mad Men is my favorite current TV show (hip), I sometimes shop at the Gap (not hip). Now and then, something becomes so hip, it’s no longer hip; but then is just so inherently awesome, it becomes hip again. For examples, see: music on vinyl, graphic novels, Zach Galifianakis and "Fantastic Mr. Fox."

Coming in February

A couple of weeks ago Greg mentioned that Ralph Wood is planning to speak at our 2010 Growth in Grace Conference. Wood is currently a professor at Baylor and brings many years of expert experience to the topic of literature and theology. Several titles of his will be available on the book table beginning this Sunday. By way of further introduction, watch the video to see Ralph Wood commenting on the life and work of Flannery O’Connor. And go ahead and save the date for the conference: Friday, February 12 at the Wildflower Center.

The wealth of the kingdom

"I repeat, I emphatically repeat: ingenuous people and active figures are all active simply because they are dull and narrow-minded. How to explain it? Here's how: as a consequence of their narrow-mindedness they take the most immediate and secondary causes for the primary ones, and thus become convinced more quickly and easily than others that they have found an indisputable basis for their doings, and so they feel at ease; and that, after all, is the main thing."

So says Dostoevsky's underground man. The narrow-mindedness leads to deceptive explanations, these explanations to bad actions aimed at comfort, and that comfort reinforces dullness and narrow-mindedness. It's difficult to look up and find something that doesn't fit the bill. Whether it's a new spin on free-market economics or the most compelling argument for a universal health care program, the latest fashions or the best tastes in pop music, we are always finding secondary substitutes, images, for real goodness, real beauty, and real truth. Despite pundits of all affiliations rocketing their arguments across the aisle (and this aisle becoming more and more like a wall) some unlikely voices of reason and humility have been heard. Some Americans are seeing through the arguments about these "secondary causes" and discovering the primary cause of our discontent. Some are even finding the God who enters into it.

Community through physical space

 

I hate driving. I dislike radio commercials, traffic lights, getting into a car that is 50 degrees warmer than the already hot Texas afternoon (although right now it is a bearable), and of course, I detest all other cars that are in my way. When I get behind a steering wheel and close the door to my car, I am shut off from the world. I am King, and anybody who gets in my way should be ticketed, fined, or should have to pay me some sort of massive fine for causing me such an inconvenience. Jesus was surely speaking to me when he said to tear out your right eye and throw it away if it causes you to sin, because my car brings indignation and enmity to my heart without fail. The application of tearing out my eye? I choose to walk.

Our Near-Death Experience

Death is a big part of Thomas Lynch’s life. In his role as undertaker serving the small town of Milford, Michigan, he deals with death everyday. Lynch is also a poet; and as a poet/undertaker he’s uniquely equipped to observe and comment upon the rituals that accompany death in this country. He does it so well that his musings regularly grace the op-ed pages of the New York Times.

In his essay “Our Near-Death Experience” he comments on how funerals have changed in the 40 years he’s been doing them, and how he interprets the significance of those changes:

Lust, Caution

"Lust...is certainly the juiciest and most popular sin .... Not suprisingly, modern advertisers have capitalized openly on lust .... It is important, therefore, to state without coyness or hypocrisy just why lust is a deadly sin."

Trinity Forum, Steering Through Chaos

Picnic

New members. Baptisms. Tacodeli. Softball. A full Sunday. Thanks to Stanton, Eric, and Lance for taking some pictures. GALLERY.