Page 1282 – Christianity Today (2024)

An estimated $600,000 was stolen from Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church this weekend in Houston.

According to a statement sent to church members, someone allegedly stole cash, checks, and credit card information from the church safe, reported the Houston Chronicle, one of the first of many media outlets to cover the story.

Church leaders urged members who had given over the weekend to closely monitor their accounts for fraud.

"The funds were fully insured, and we are working with our insurance company to restore the stolen funds to the church," Lakewood's statement read (full text below).

CT's previous reporting on Joel Osteen includes how the prosperity gospel is now surprisingly mainstream.

CT's previously reporting on theft includes the rash of church metal thefts, including how such theft decreased by 60 percent in the United Kingdom thanks to "voice of God" alarms. CT also reported how fraudbuster Barry Minkow was convicted of stealing $3 million from his own church, how Jesus' name exposes Christians to identity theft, and how a departing diocese sued the Episcopal Church for identity protection.

CT also reported how theft and fraud in Christian circles was rising at a rate of 5.9 percent annually in 2011, including a YWAM leader who swindled millions from friends, family, and missionaries. In addition, CT explored why it might be a good idea not to trust your pastor/mortgage officer because of church-based affinity fraud.

Lakewood's statement:

We were heartbroken to learn today that funds were stolen from the church over the weekend. This includes cash, checks and envelopes containing written credit card information, and it is limited only to those funds contributed in the church services on Saturday, March 8 and Sunday, March 9, 2014. If you made a contribution during these weekend services, we would encourage you to pay close attention to your accounts over the next several days and weeks and report any suspicious activity to your financial institution or credit card company immediately.

It is important to note this was not an electronic data breach, but was instead limited to donations made in the services on March 8 and 9, 2014. You were not affected if you put your offering in a drop box, you gave online or through other electronic means, or you made a bookstore purchase. We are working with the police to fully investigate the incident. The funds were fully insured, and we are working with our insurance company to restore the stolen funds to the church.

If you have any questions about this matter, please contact our Customer Service Department at 713-491-1506. The integrity of our congregants' information is of utmost importance to us. And, we would like to thank you for your continued support.

I read that by some estimates, every day in the United States, nine churches shut their doors forever. On January 26, 2014, my church—the Reformed Church in Plano (RCP)—was one of them.

After hearing the news late last year, I cried during every worship service for six weeks straight. The music, a prayer, a line during the sermon, or a simple look around would trigger me, and the memories and tears would flow.

I wasn't the only one. After-church hugs and chats lingered a bit longer each Sunday, as everyone comforted and supported one another.

"I still can't believe this is happening," someone would say. "Can't we figure out a way to save our church?" said another. "I'm sorry, but I really think that (fill in person or circ*mstance here) is a lot to blame for this," several people remarked. "What are we going to do? Where are we going to go?"

God's hand laid heavily upon my and my husband's heart to remain with our church until it died. This was the first time that I stayed fully present—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually—through the end of something. With every other end or loss in my life, I've separated myself, especially my emotions, well before the final day arrived. I protect myself this way, thinking if I keep myself from feeling, the loss won't hurt as much.

The Lord reminded me of the summer I spent as a hospital chaplain intern while in seminary. Amongst other things we chaplains were charged with speaking to families about end-of-life decisions. The theological viewpoint of medicine, we were told, is to aid life through health and healing, not to extend it when all vital signs are not present. Only the family could make the gut-wrenching decision to remove life support, but we were there to guide them.

How would your loved one want to live? How would she want to die? What is quality of life for her? What is quality of death? If asked our opinion, chaplains were to answer theologically. "Death, the gospel tells us, is only a part of our greater story within God's gracious plan." The rest of the story, of course, is resurrection. This core of the Christian religion encompasses not only the death of persons, but the death of churches as well. Resurrection claims victory over death by bringing new life through it.

Death must come, as a matter of fact, so that the new can emerge and flourish. Jesus makes this truth clear as he speaks to his disciples in John's Gospel:

Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you'll have it forever, real and eternal (John 12:24–25, The Message).

"What we need is a real letting go—of the past, of our fears, of power, of tradition," said Rev. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, author of From Times Square to Timbuktu: The Post-Christian West Meets the Non-Western Church, and former general secretary of my denomination, the Reformed Church in America. "We have to give everything up so that the new thing that is possible for the body of Christ can break through. It's too hard to break through the present when the church is on life support and the concern is keeping the doors open."

It takes prayer, discernment, and a great deal of faithful courage to decide to close a church, rather than allow it to limp on.

As 2013 passed by, leaders of my church saw signs that pointed to a nearing end, but no one wanted to say it. It was too painful, and everyone was so emotionally invested in the congregation.

"No one wants to be the one or be on the leadership team who decides to close the church," said John Weymer, an elder and vice-president of our church's leadership board. "You fear killing the church, and you feel the weight of the congregation heavy upon you. There is a natural desire to survive, I think, and death feels like failure."

Over time, Weymer reconsidered the meaning of failure. Is there really failure within the Christian context? If RCP closes, and it's not failure, then what has happened? For him the question became one of stewardship: How should RCP best spend its resources?

"Once the decision was made, our call became to finish well," Weymer said. "Our leadership embraced helping the congregation to transition from old to new, and helping people to see that God's church is much bigger than our little building on Independence Parkway."

To this end my church's co-pastors preached on resurrection for their final sermon series. For a month they touched upon delicate issues with grace and compassion. Yes, we prayed and prayed for resurrection of this church, and God chose to answer us in a way we didn't expect. What new thing is God doing in our midst, within us, and beyond these church doors? Our church's death might be part of God's greater plan? That's a perspective most of us hadn't considered, one that needs follow-up prayer and meditation.

The congregation didn't know it, but our co-pastors were working together with God to pave the way that was yet before us, the way toward further service and greater growth in faith. What a gift to hear God speak much-needed words through these two servants.

Two weeks before our final Sunday the elders hosted a congregational meeting to discuss other churches near ours that might be a good fit for our church's members. They'd done their research, and they presented about 15 churches to us.

"We're not trying to tell you and your family which church to attend and join," an elder said as she wrapped up her comments. "We just want to you know that we're still here for you, and we want to do everything we can to ease your transition into a new church home. Any church will be blessed to have former RCP members join them, because all of you have a lot to give."

We may not have acknowledged it, but we were walking through the valley of the shadow of death, and God was with us each step, ministering to us through those dedicated church leaders, and caring for us in our darkest time. What a gift to be reminded that we never walk alone.

Our last Sunday together finally arrived, and about 100 people who had previously left came to honor the church that they once attended and still love. Some members who had faithfully been attending were angered. Where have these people been? Maybe if they hadn't left, we wouldn't be here closing this church today! This is a natural response, I think, when a community you love will die by afternoon's end.

We shared communion together one last time, and moved from fellowship hall, where we worshipped for two years, into the sanctuary. There, in that cross-adorned sacred space that dons a banner reading "Celebrate Life!" we spoke words of blessing, closure, and release of our pastors. We sang our last hymn together, "The Church's One Foundation," and stood in the sanctuary for what seemed like hours, not quite sure what to do next.

Complete with people coming out of the woodworks and a communal meal following the service, the final worship felt like a funeral for our church. Our pastors recited Scripture and preached briefly, and four speakers shared their own words, eulogizing the church that they've loved. What a gift to be part of the remnant that stayed to the very end. Had my family left prematurely, we would have avoided some pain, yes, but also denied ourselves rich blessings and relationships deepened through shared grief. We did what Christians have done for thousands of years when a loved one has passed on—celebrated life, treasured memories, and grieved a deep loss together as the body of Christ.

Rev. Angie Mabry-Nauta is a writer, speaker, and ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Reformed Church in America. She is a contributor to Gifted for Leadership, and is a member of the Redbud Writers Guild. Angie is the creator of "I Love My Mom, But…" a Christian workshop that brings hope to strained mother/adult child relationships. Follow Angie at www.angiemn.com, on Twitter @RevAngieMN, and on Facebook.

If you've ever been stuck in traffic caused by drivers slowing down to get a glimpse of the accident scene, you know we humans are a nosy bunch.

So it's no surprise that readers have devoured a steady stream of recent memoirs penned by people who grew up in abusive, controlling fundamentalist sects. We curiously peek into the barbed-wire edges of different faith traditions—Jewish, Mormon, and Christian—from the perspectives of their former members.

While the theology may differ, the plotlines in this popular genre vary little: the author's childhood was a horror, leaving the group required great courage, and integrating into mainstream society afterwards remains a disorienting, difficult process. Popular blogger Elizabeth Esther's Girl at the End of the World: My Escape From Fundamentalism in Search of a Faith with a Future, set to release next Tuesday, March 18, is a recent addition to the genre.

Are these stories (and similarly-themed blogs, films, and TV shows) the pulp nonfiction equivalent of gapers' block, giving us a chance to gaze at the wreckage? Or are they cautionary tales about the high cost of blind allegiance? The answer may be yes to both.

Most importantly, though, these memoirs amplify the once-voiceless among us, and no matter how painful, unbelievable, or bitter the accounts, they require us to listen. As followers of Jesus, we are committed to both growing in wisdom and protecting "the least of these." Their candid, painful reflections remind us that sometimes the most vulnerable among us may be abused children now living inside adult bodies.

Esther's Girl at the End of the World follows her upbringing in a network of about 50 or so fundamentalist fringe congregations once known as The Assembly, led by her grandfather, George Geftakys. She introduces her eight-year-old self to readers by telling them, "I'm classically trained in apocalypse stockpiling, street preaching, and the King James Version of the Bible. I know hundreds of obscure nineteenth-century hymns by heart and have such razor-sharp 'modesty-vision' that I can spot a miniskirt a mile away."

While her cult-leader grandfather nurtured his double life of sexual immorality, and domestic violence ravaged her uncle's household, Elizabeth Esther's childhood home-turned-commune was characterized by the rancid fruits of her family's teaching. She recounts a childhood filled with unrelenting physical, spiritual, and emotional abuse.

When she and her husband exited the cult as young adults with three babies in tow, they entered broader society like refugees. "I used TV as my shortcut to understanding pop culture and assimilating into mainstream America," she said. "That made me prime bait for every putrid reality show, game show, cartoon, and newscast. I got emotionally involved in everything from Barney and Friends to The Bachelor. One night I went to bed crying because I couldn't believe Tony left Billie Jean at the altar on a trashy show called Married By America."

She struggled to learn how to make even simple choices for the first time in her life. Decisions about everything from whom and when she could marry to how she was to discipline her children had been prescribed by her authorities (which, in her case, also often happened to be family members) in The Assembly.

The stories in these memoirs contain details far more unsavory and titillating than a jilted bride's meltdown on a reality TV program. While the ex-fundamentalist genre may tap into our hunger for bits of juicy gossip, a thoughtful reader will imbibe these stories with the sobriety they require.

No one ever wakes up one day and decides to join a cult. It happens bit by bit, as members surrender over time to the will of a "visionary" leader. They practice their special version of True Faith, in the single, all-or-nothing manner prescribed by the cult leader and his revelation. Children of members don't get to opt out of their parents' journey down a destructive path.

The children who've grown up in fundamentalist cults are not just exiting a sour church situation, but the only lives they've ever known. They leave behind their families, their social networks, and their identities. Memoirs written by ex-fundamentalists show us in slow motion what courage can look like. These stories detail the excruciating emotional journey a cult member must make to work toward a decision to leave. These books allow us to hear the sound of a door handle turning for the last time as the author departs.

And these stories allow us to follow them as they begin to build a life for the first time on the other side. Even the most acid-toned memoirs penned by ex-fundamentalists (and there are plenty of these books out there) are a reminder that abuse done in God's name affects all of us in the body of Christ.

Leavers face the lonely task of jettisoning the rule-laden, fear-drenched version of "faith" they grew up with. Many never return to any form of organized religion. Elizabeth Esther reports that counseling, medication, time, and a mustard seed of faith in Christ that survived the dysfunction of her childhood has grown into a connection with Catholicism. "I once heard a story about a woman who asked God to move a mountain," she wrote. "God said okay, and then He handed her a shovel. I think that's a good analogy for how my story ends. I'm still shoveling. I'm still uncovering, sorting, reexamining."

According to the rules of a Washington parlor game, there is only one thing to do upon the release of a memoir by a former high-profile official: search the text for the most salacious, damning, or quotable put-downs of other officials and shout them over Twitter at your political opponents. Thus, if you have heard anything about former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ new memoir, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, you know that he has some sharp criticisms of Vice President Joe Biden, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for being partisan and short-sighted. He is especially contemptuous of Congress. In private, he says, members of Congress were “sometimes insightful and intelligent,” but TV cameras “had the effect of a full moon on a werewolf.” Some members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee “were rude, nasty, and stupid.”

But Gates is an even-handed critic, and both sides have plenty of material to work with. President George W. Bush was “much more intellectually curious than his public image,” but “rarely questioned his own thinking.” General David Petraeus was a hero for making the surge of U.S. troops in Iraq work, but Gates recognized that “we would need a strong and seasoned four-star officer” to serve as Petraeus’ boss—because, Gates implies, Petraeus was the sort of subordinate that needed supervision. And the person who comes in for the most criticism is Gates himself: the memoir is riddled with admissions of his own failings, a model of self-flagellation.

Gates’ criticisms are surprising because, while in office (from December 2006 to July 2011), he cultivated a restrained, non-partisan, cool persona. He won widespread praise for his straight talk—when asked during his confirmation hearings if the United States was winning the war in Iraq, he famously replied, simply, “No sir.” Now he comes clean: it was all an act. He repeatedly admits he was “seething” underneath and talks about “the dramatic contrast between my public respect, bipartisanship, and calm, and my private frustration, disgust, and anger.” He believed, rightly, that a public image of dispassionate objectivity would be a more effective tool for pushing his agenda than giving vent to his actual feelings. But if his earlier dispassion was a service to the nation, one wonders what the legacy of this memoir will be.

2.

Or, at least, the legacy of its reputation. In truth, Gates’ book is not primarily a witty record of others’ failings. Treating it chiefly as a gossip repository does it a disservice and, in fact, overlooks the bigger scandal that he records: the brokenness of the federal bureaucracy, the Department of Defense foremost. If what Gates records is true, it is simply astonishing what the Secretary of Defense cannot do within his own department. Gates spends long sections of the memoir detailing his battle with the bureaucracy over improving medical care for veterans; developing, procuring, and delivering mine-resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles; building and buying more unmanned aerial vehicles for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; and more. In Gates’ view, the Department was focused almost entirely on preparing for the next large conventional war rather than winning the wars it was already in, the modern form of the military-industrial complex.

Gates’ criticisms of the bureaucracy raise questions about the manageability of the American military establishment—indeed, of the American government. An individual human being can effectively manage only so many relationships at once. As the Defense Department has grown in scope and complexity since World War II (along with the rest of the government), the obvious solution is to introduce more layers of management and delegate more responsibilities downward so that the senior leadership deals only with top-level, strategic issues. But that also means the senior leadership is effectively powerless when it comes to day-to-day management and implementation—which is, of course, where strategy goes to die. The Secretary of Defense may be the least effectual employee in the entire department.

One gets the impression, from Gates’ account, that the president and the National Security Council deliberate and decide with great earnestness while the bureaucracy—oblivious, inert, and imperturbable—keeps on doing what it has always done. I am convinced, from my own experience working on the NSC staff, that bureaucratic drift is a far more convincing explanation for America’s foreign-policy short-sightedness than the dark suspicions of critics who warn of American imperialism or the corporate dominance of national security policy.

Gates tried, with some success, to challenge the bureaucracy. The smallest anecdote is telling and sadly funny. He admits that his attempt to wean the department off Microsoft PowerPoint was a rout. As a professor at the military’s National Defense University, I see how minds go blank when I put up a slide. When I handwrite information on a dry-erase board, students absorb it three times: as I speak it, as they read it, and as they write it in their notes. Confronted with a slide, they stop listening, assume they can get a copy of the slides to read later, and don’t bother to take notes. Slides allow the mind to go slack while still allowing the listener to feel like he’s learning. Gates’ futile assault was noble but doomed, a tilting at the windmills of military culture.

More seriously, Gates tried to challenge the system of rewards and promotions by daring to fire people. But he was inconsistent. He explains (rightly, I think) that General David McKiernan was simply not the right man to lead the complex war in Afghanistan and that relieving him in 2009 was one of his hardest decisions. But, inexplicably, he defends his recommendation to promote General George Casey who, after commanding U.S. troops in Iraq during the catastrophic years of 2004-2006, was named Army Chief of Staff, the highest ranking position in the Army.

3.

It is heartbreaking that the biggest thing Gates got wrong was Afghanistan. He admits to being “torn,” and it shows. He argues that the United States needed to mount a counterinsurgency campaign with more troops and more civilians to improve governance and security, then laments that U.S. war aims had gotten too ambitious and too close to “nation building.” He repeatedly claims that the attempt to build effective, democratic governance in Afghanistan was a “fantasy,” despite that those are a chief component of the counterinsurgency strategy he calls for. He says he wanted to narrow the American effort down to military operations against the Taliban, but then spends several pages wringing his hands over how few State Department and USAID civilians were deployed to Afghanistan: if building governance was a fantasy, why worry about the lack of civilians devoted to its fruitless pursuit? And Gates complains that the United States spent too much time trying to build a central government “in a country that had virtually never had one,” a talking point that, no matter how many times it is repeated by otherwise educated and intelligent people, has never been remotely true.

Gates has a problem with some of the facts. Karzai was elected in the fall of 2004, not 2003. Bruce Riedel is a leading expert on Pakistan, not the Middle East. Gates refers to Salafi jihadists as “Islamic fundamentalists,” an anachronistic and contextually inappropriate label. The Afghan constitution is in fact quite ambiguous about when presidential terms end and did not necessarily require a May 2009 election date, as Gates claims. It is telling that Gates, clearly one of our most intelligent and meticulous public servants, couldn’t think clearly about one of America’s most pressing foreign policy challenges. Gates covers over his ignorance by invoking an imagined general ignorance about the mysterious land of Afghanistan. “We had learned nothing about the place in the 20 years since helping defeat the Soviets there.” Who are “we”? Perhaps he should speak for himself.

4.

Gates has written an invaluable historical document. As the first Secretary of Defense to remain in office during a transition between presidents of different parties in wartime, he offers an unparalleled look at the internal workings of government during a precarious and unique time in American history. His look inside also helps us understand how well, or poorly, our government actually works, always a healthy service in a democracy. It is not high literature; long descriptions of bureaucratic turf battles will not move you to tears.

But his recounting of meetings with his troops might. Gates comes alive when he talks about the courage and selfless devotion of America’s soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines, writes earnestly of his love for them, and admits that he eventually quit in part because he felt his concern for the troops was undermining his judgment about American national security. It is cold to say so, but he was right: the safety of the troops is not the highest national security interest of the United States. States have armies precisely so they can risk them to secure other, higher interests. But of any failing in a Secretary of Defense, excessive concern for the troops is the most forgivable.

Paul D. Miller is a political scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corp. He is a former CIA analyst and served from 2007 to 2009 as director for Afghanistan and Pakistan on the White House’s National Security Staff. The views expressed here are his own.

Copyright © 2014 Books & Culture. Click for reprint information.

"Le vent se lève! . . . Il faut tenter de vivre!" ("The wind is rising! . . . We must try to live!")

This quote from Paul Valéry's poem "Le Cimetière marin" opens and is repeated throughout Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises, a gorgeous and existentially contemplative film recently nominated for the best animated film Oscar (it lost to Frozen).

Miyazaki—a legendary Japanese filmmaker/animator (Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle)—is in the twilight of his career, and The Wind Rises is an appropriately epic, stately, and somber capstone to his six decades of acclaimed work. Its pace is more Ozu than Lego Movie, and its subject matter (building Japanese war planes in the years leading up to World War II) is hardly typical of the animated genre, but The Wind Rises is a masterful film. It deserves a wide audience.

The anime film is a fictionalized biography of aeronautical engineer Jiro Horikoshi, who helped design and develop the planes that would be used by Japan in World War II. We see Jiro as a boy who dreams of flying planes but, due to poor eyesight, settles on the dream of building planes. He goes to college for it and quickly becomes the engineering prodigy of his country's developing aviation industry.

Jiro (voiced in the English-dubbed version by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) may be a nerdy engineer, but Miyazaki portrays him as an artist. His canvas is the sky and his paintbrush is the slide rule. The film's tension comes from an artist trying to do what he loves within the constraints of industry and practical life—in this case, a growing military industrial complex forking over huge amounts of money for planes designed to be agile killing machines. Jiro would rather his planes be elegant and graceful, without guns or bomb-dropping mechanisms.

But as it is, he is alive and in the prime of his engineering life at precisely the moment when the world is readying itself for war. As one character notes, any artist—including a plane engineer—has about ten years during which he or she is at the top of their craft, making their best work.

The winds of Jiro's life blew him into this place and time and for this task: to make the most well-designed war planes possible.

Miyazaki, an outspoken pacifist, doesn't critique Jiro for his role in perfecting the machinery of death in advance of World War II. Rather, he laments the way that such talent is twisted and such artistry leveraged for the ugly machinations of nations at war.

Set against the ominous backdrop of modernity's march to replace the pastoral with the industrial (an image of oxen carting war planes to a grassy runway epitomizes this), The Wind Rises is above all an elegy for the impermanence of beauty, art, love, and ultimately life itself.

The animation itself reflects this: painterly, almost Monet-esque landscapes populate the film, as well as whimsical visions of cloud, flight, and fancy. Yet this is juxtaposed with imagery of fire, destruction (the 1923 Kantō earthquake and fire) and war. There's skepticism about modernity and a romantic fondness for nature and the pastoral here, in a manner not unlike Terrence Malick or Werner Herzog (who lends his distinct voice to a German character in the film).

But The Wind Rises is not just a critique of technology. It actually has some admiration for technology as a new playground for innovators and artists.

No, the film is more elemental in its lament: whether by technology, or war, or tuberculosis, or a downpour that ruins the canvas of a painting-in-progress, all things will come to an end. The Wind Rises is a poignant example of the sort of wise, quiet sadness that imbues much of the best Japanese art with a "sun-setting" sense of the temporal.

This being a Japanese film, the emotion of Rises is not of the tear-jerking variety (see Up and Wall-E) but is more subtly woven into the brushstrokes of the narrative. Still, it's hard not to leave this film feeling an existential weight somewhere between sehnsucht and sunt lacrimae rerum: a bittersweet longing for a world without sickness and death; a world where the cheery dreams of childhood can live into the future without being bungled by bureaucracy or tainted by the harshness of practicality; a world where a love story like that of Jiro and Naoko (voiced by Emily Blunt) doesn't have to end in tragedy.

Jiro dreams of making beautiful airplanes (his dream life is an active, cathartic presence throughout the film), but even his chosen medium is not without its inherent nightmares. As one character points out to Jiro: "Airplanes are beautiful, cursed dreams waiting for the sky to swallow them up." Cursed dreams. This is the thematic heart of the film.

But in spite of all of this, the urge to create persists. As an artist himself, Miyazaki doubtless is all too familiar with the myriad of reasons to despair, give up, or give in to the man—yet at 73, he still finds inspiration to keep making art the way he wants to.

The wind will always rise, taking us up to new heights, blowing us where we least expect and sometimes blowing us back to the ground. There's something "Forrest Gump fatalistic" about this, perhaps. Or maybe it's a more divinely orchestrated wind, bringing winds of both blessing and misfortune. Either way, suggests Miyazaki via Valéry, our response should be the same: come what may, "We must try to live!"

Caveat Spectator

The Wind Rises received an odd rating for an animated film—PG-13, mostly for frequent images of characters smoking. There are also some violent images (destruction from earthquakes and fires, planes crashing, one character coughs up blood) and a few mild curse words. Themes of war and death also lend the film a sometimes ominous tone.

Brett McCracken is a Los Angeles-based writer and journalist, and author of the books Hipster Christianity: When Church and Cool Collide (Baker, 2010) and Gray Matters: Navigating the Space Between Legalism and Liberty(Baker, 2013). You can follow him @brettmccracken.

There are a handful of people that the PARSE editors have committed to not speak or write about publicly—either positively or negatively. It's not a legal embargo, just a personal policy. We also think it is beneficial to the souls and self-image of other pastors to believe these leaders are in fact fictional characters created by market researchers in a hypothetical exercise on the interplay of Christianity and brand-theory, and that they do not actually inhabit the same world as the rest of us. For that reason any direct references to specific characters involved in recent publishing scandals have been edited out of Mandy's post. – Skye Jethani

It's a strange thing to be working on a proposal for a Christian book the week the news breaks about [EDITED]'s questionable marketing practices for his book on [EDITED].

As you may know, the writing of a proposal requires the author to argue that their book contributes something unique, has a large potential audience and deserves to be published. It takes even the most carefree writer to a place of deep self-assessment. Does the world really need this book? Why am I doing this anyway?

While my first response to the news about [EDITED] was a mix of sadness for where fame has brought [EDITED] and frustration with how the Christian celebrity system creates such situations, after some time I'm also adding a little self-reflection.

If I'm honest, aren't there messages that I would pay money to allow people to hear? There are two or three things that have changed my life that I want to shout from the hilltops. Every time I see someone struggling with a similar problem I've had, I long for a chance to share my story, almost a physical pain, longing for an opportunity. It's a pastoral urge. If I had $210,000 to be sure thousands who have the same questions I've had could be given a chance to at least consider my idea, I could be tempted to use it.

Isn't it the longing of every teacher and preacher to be heard? Even Jesus longed for ears that hear.

What is our motivation when we step before an audience or publish a piece of writing? Maybe we truly feel called to share something we've learned. And maybe our sense of calling motivates us to force God's hand a little—going to that conference, making that Facebook connection, touching base with that old professor—all to have what we may call a platform, a voice, an opportunity. If we're honest, our motivation may include a touch of something that feels like what we read last week. And, although it smacks of selling out, mixed in with desire for recognition, maybe Pastor [EDITED] longed to bring a message because it might help someone.

If we're honest, perhaps our motives when we share our ideas are just as mixed … but we have fewer resources at our disposal.

And so I write my book proposal, very conscious of my motivation. A longing for opportunity to share my story can feel very much like a longing for fame. A longing for a larger audience or a publishing contract in the name of bringing hope or a positive influence can feel very much like a desire for power. And so I wrestle to extract a desire that all the nations know the freedom of the gospel from a desire for attention—two things which are opposites and yet, when you're the one presenting the gospel, can feel very much the same. And if this proposal ever does become a book I will enter into that challenging place of trying to distinguish between book sales and hearts changed, which will be tricky. Although they are not synonymous, they are intertwined.

Even as I put the finishing touches on this article I can't help hoping somebody will like it . . . and "Like" it. Oh, and if you're interested in hearing more about that book proposal . . . .

Mandy Smith serves as lead pastor at University Christian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is the author of Making a Mess and Meeting God: Unruly Ideas and Everyday Experiments for Worship

This week is the South By Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival, and we're lucky enough to have updates from the festival every day. You can read the first one here and the second one here.

Cumbres, directed by Gabriel Nuncio

Short Films:

• Notes on Blindness: Rainfall, directed by James Spinney and Peter Middleton
• Yearbook, directed by Bernardo Britto
• The Alligator, directed by Alexandra Barsky
• The Video Dating Tape of Desmondo Ray, Aged 33 and ¾., directed by Steve Baker
• Chocolate Heart, directed by Harrison Atkins
• Verbatim, Brett Weiner

Road trips are a staple of small budget films. They aren't hard to do well, but they are hard to make distinctive. In Cumbres, Miwi is woken up in the middle of the night and told she must leave town with her sister Juliana. Neither she nor we are told why they must go, but deep down we know. Deep down, so does Miwi.

During the film's first half, I thought more than once about Thelma & Louise, another pair who are forced to take to the road more for what is done to them than through any fault of their own. Miwi and Juliana are actual sisters, younger than Thelma or Louise, and Mexican. For all those differences, they share a world-weariness with their Hollywood relations. There's not a road long enough to take them to a place where they can get away from men who get away with too much. People help them along the way, but most of them have little to begin with and, hence, can offer little to them.

The film doesn't end with a shoot-out or a defiant jump off a cliff. The sisters are refugees more than they are bandits, and the film's most poignant observation is that even if escape is possible, we carry our past with us to wherever we go to run from it.

Besides a week or so before the Academy-Awards when nominated shorts might get a brief run for the curious, short films rarely garner the attention of the average viewer. But they are, or can be, the demo tapes for newer artists. Few joys rival the one that comes from recognizing talent on the ascent. Screening shorts at festivals give you the opportunity to put names on your radar.

James Spinney's and Peter Middleton's Notes on Blindness: Rainfall has been my favorite short thus far. Juxtaposing John Hull's audio diary about his blindness with images of those things he can no longer see, Notes on Blindness is part photography, part poetry. As Hull speaks of gradually losing not just his vision but his memory of vision, we are reminded in small but profound ways of how the world is constantly made anew. We also hear from Hull's wife about the pain inherent of not being seen. At fourteen minutes, the film is long enough to flow but not so long that it becomes monotonous. If you can find it, check it out.

On the animated side, Bernardo Britto's Yearbook packed the emotional punch of a melancholy Kurosawa film in just six minutes. Given seventeen years to document the world's history before aliens destroy most of it, the film's animated protagonist rebels against an historical view that greatness is a matter of achievement and that only the great deserve to be remembered. Some prickly Christians could end up docking the short a few points when the narrator expresses uncertainty about the life of Jesus, but that passage rightly underscores the melancholy nature of agnosticism in the face of extinction. It's kind of difficult to preserve anything for posterity if there is no one or nothing that is eternal to begin with.

Less successful were Alligator and The Video Dating Tape of Desmondo Ray, Aged 33 and ¾. There is some clever use of animation in both. The former evoked Edward Gorey for me, which is a good thing, but animated nudity is always problematic, and both were a little too crass for me to find genuinely pleasurable. Chocolate Heart doesn't have the cleverness of either, just the crudeness. A young man can't learn about sex from his parents because they turn into cats. In general, if a short is identified as "black comedy," that's usually a tip that its more crude than funny.

Verbatim is a dramatization of an Ohio court deposition in which a lawyer tries to get a nervous and suspicious worker to admit he knows what a photocopier is. The short is funny in its Monty Pythonesque verbal absurdity, but it is also just a little sad. This sort of rhetorical gridlock is, I bet, more common in depositions than those of us who don't frequent such rooms probably suppose. It is the inevitable consequence of a litigious society. When we know our every word will be pounced upon, twisted, and manipulated, we learn to use words to say nothing so that we cannot be held accountable.

Kenneth R. Morefield is an Associate Professor of English at Campbell University. He is the editor of Faith and Spirituality in Masters of World Cinema, Volumes I & II, and the founder of 1More Film Blog.

Veronica Mars never went toe-to-toe with Buffy Summers. If anything, the success of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) paved the way for shows like Alias (2001-2006) and Veronica Mars (2004-2007), each featuring young, female protagonists in jobs more frequently filled by men. So Veronica wasn't the first of her kind, but I always thought she was the best.

Turns out I wasn't the only one.

Writer and director Rob Thomas perfectly articulated Veronica's distinctiveness to the audience at the film's SXSW premiere. Buffy and Sydney (Bristow of Alias) could literally beat up the bad guys, but Veronica's "superpower," he thought, should be that she learned not to define herself by what a guy thought of her outfit. (Thomas put it a bit more bluntly, saying it was that she just "didn't give a s—.")

Thomas taught high school for several years and served as a yearbook adviser, crediting that experience as a crash course in how teenaged girls act and talk. He also noted that high school is a time when everyone is painfully self-conscious.

I have always thought it was Thomas's and Bell's willingness to have Veronica channel that self-consciousness into self-examination that raised the show above the level of melodrama. Because Veronica started as a member of the popular clique, her critique of teen culture included a strain of self-examination, even self-indictment. The show was not just about navigating the rigged systems of class and status. It was about trying to forge an alternative to those things, about creating an identity that wasn't based on them and would preserve the shards of self-respect and self-esteem that class privilege and social hierarchies grind so efficiently into dust.

As a male viewer, I also appreciated that the show presented men not just as the perpetuators of social hierarchies, but as equally pressured and warped by them. Otherwise, Veronica's relationship with Logan would simply be one more bad-boy infatuation, rather than two deeply wounded souls trying to learn how to trust life again by learning to trust each other.

In the film, Logan describes their relationship as "epic" and it is a mark of Thomas's writing and Jason Dohring's talent that he could do so without inviting giggles. Their relationship, which is the engine driving the film's plot, is akin to that of Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan, only this time with money on the side of the man. When Logan becomes the suspect of a murder investigation, Veronica can't help but try to clear him, threatening her current romance and risking the loss of a job offer from a New York law firm.

The murder investigation is not particularly interesting (or easy to follow), which makes me wonder if those unfamiliar with the show will find enough to engage them in between nostalgic cameos and inside jokes. If any readers are in that category, I strongly suggest watching at least the first season of the program (it is available on Amazon Prime) before watching the movie. It's definitely a sequel/continuation, rather than a stand-alone film.

And that shouldn't be a surprise. Given its reliance on Kickstarter contributions, Thomas said, "I wanted to give the people [who contributed] what they wanted."

In that, he absolutely delivered.

The plot is about clearing Logan. But the movie itself is about Veronica coming to terms with her identity. Bell said that in revisiting the role she was slightly worried that she wouldn't be able to "find [Veronica] as close to me" as she had when she was doing the television show. Thomas had always written dialogue that felt like it already existed in her head.

Happily for her—and us—it worked. The voiceover narration features Veronica's wry, distinctive musings, contemplating why, after so many years of trying to escape Neptune, she finds it impossible to turn her back on a place and a way of life that has been the source of so much pain.

The film is best in its character development. When you've spent sixty-four episodes with a character in a TV show, you get to know her well, so even smaller exchanges are infused with layers of meaning. We don't need the film to explain to us why Mac taking a job at Kane software is a big deal—we can just watch for Veronica's reaction.

It helps, too, that Veronica is a complex as well as a beloved character. She's smart and sassy, but there is an understandable element of anger in her, even rage. (In Buffy's pilot episode, the slayer turns to fight off her attacker; in Veronica's she admits that she was drugged and sexually assaulted at a party.) Like many victims of circ*mstance who have developed special skills to cope with dysfunctional environments, she wonders if she can ever go back to being normal . . . or whether there even is such a thing. As the daughter of an addict (mom is mentioned but does not appear in the film), she wrestles with questions of heredity and inheritance.

One of the best things about the television show was the father-daughter relationship between Veronica and former sheriff turned private investigator, Keith Mars (Enrico Colantoni). Dad often had to remind Veronica that she wasn't an adult yet and even save her once or twice when she got in over her head.

In the film, Veronica is an adult, and now she has to remind him of that fact. That is hardly an unfamiliar trope, but rarely has it played out on big screen or small between a parent and child with such obvious loyalty and affection. Keith is not a major part of the film's plot, but I would argue that his presence is—and always has been—crucial in making us understand what really saved Veronica, not just from death but from self-loathing bitterness.

Young people long to be loved for who they are, not just for what they accomplish. Perhaps the greatest sign of the film's intelligence is that while Thomas strives to give fans "what they want," Keith's steadfast desire that Veronica have what is best for her carries an ever-so-slightly stinging reminder of our selfishness. Escape Neptune and have a successful legal career? No way! We want Veronica sitting at that desk forever. We want her to give us hope that bullies and power brokers may sometimes beat but never break us. Yet there is a great cost of carrying the hopes of others, of not being able to lay your burden down after a period of service. A part of us, a part of me, wanted Veronica to be able to move on, even as the fanboy in me kept secretly hoping for a hook to Veronica Mars 2 or a series reboot.

Those conflicting desires, the mix of joy and melancholy, gave the film what every ten year high school reunion should have: a bittersweet quality. Veronica's high school career is an increasingly distant memory, but Veronica the human being, the hero, is still a work in progress.

Aren't we all?

Caveat Spectator

The film is a bit rougher and more explicit, particularly in language, than the television show. The characters (including Veronica) drink alcohol, and there are some mild sexual scenes as well as a moderate amount of sexual talk. For example, several characters mention the sex video that was made against her consent when Veronica was drugged as a high school student. In an early scene, a fellow job applicant draws a suggestive picture and shows it to Veronica to try to fluster her. She makes a lewd gesture at him. Another character shows parts of that video at a public gathering to try to embarrass Veronica. There is some brief gun violence and a scene with a character being stunned with a Taser. Several of Veronica's male friends get into a brawl. Veronica punches an old rival in the face. The film doesn't push the PG-13 envelope in terms of how explicitly the content is depicted, but it is pretty clearly aimed at young adults, not young teens.

Kenneth R. Morefield is an Associate Professor of English at Campbell University. He is the editor of Faith and Spirituality in Masters of World Cinema, Volumes I & II, and the founder of 1More Film Blog.

During the several years I suffered from chronic ankle pain, I tried almost everything – orthopedic doctors, chiropractors, physical therapy, nutritionists, healing prayer, herbalists, traditional Chinese medicine, and more. Like the people described in Candy Gunther Brown's book on Christians and alternative medicine, I found myself increasingly drawn to forms of alternative medicine that incorporate some element of spirituality into treatment of the body.

In her interview with CT, Brown warns that Christians who involve themselves in alternative medicine for health benefits can unwittingly immerse themselves in unwanted religious associations. Similar warnings have issued from others about the potential for practices such as yoga or acupuncture being occult or idolatrous.

These are important conversations. But they don't address the reason so many Christians are turning to these alternative treatments. Why are we so attracted to yoga, acupuncture, and the like? As people of faith, we recognize that we are multidimensional beings. We know that we are more than just a body, but exist as bodies, minds, and spirits, and all parts of us need attention.

Conventional Western medicine fails miserably at considering this holistic view. So engrossed with what can be numerically measured and scientifically proven, it often neglects the human spirit, treating patients as bundles of body parts and malfunctioning cells sitting in an isolated exam room. To be sure, there are individual doctors whose compassion and care challenge the system, but as a whole the system leaves little room for the time and heart it takes to treat patients holistically.

There is no doubt that the advances of modern medicine have vastly improved our quality of life and life span. I worry, however,that Western medicine itself can become idolatrous if it causes us to rely solely on scientific certainty and our own ability to master the human body instead of humbly admitting that we don't know and can't fix everything.

Many Christian responses to physical maladies are equally unsatisfying. In my own experience, when Christians come up against untreatable ailments and our prayers for healing go unanswered, we tend to chalk it up to some kind of spiritual deficiency. "Are you harboring unforgiveness?" one prayer minister asked me when I told her about my unresolved chronic pain issues.

It's true that our spiritual and emotional conditions affect our bodies, and it's a step in the right direction to realize these associations. When carried too far, though, we can end up spiritualizing everything, neglecting the real need to treat our bodies. The recent death of a second child due to one faith-healing couple's refusal to seek medical treatment is an extreme example of this.

We are faced with inadequate options all around. On one end, Western medicine treats the body without attending to the soul. On the other, the faith community prioritizes the soul while often neglecting the body. It's no wonder that many people, including Christians, have sought healing through alternative medicine.

We find alternative medicine compelling because it takes the whole person into account. Traditional Chinese Medicine, for example, recognizes that emotions and personalities have physical manifestations. Yoga works on revitalizing the mind and spirit as well as the body. In seeking out these alternative practices, people are voicing a deep need for holistic medicine – medicine that doesn't break us into disparate component parts that have no relation to each other.

Most forms of holistic medicine have roots in Eastern religions. For Christians, that can be cause for concern, but also raises the question: Why haven't similar practices come out of Christianity? The incarnation of Jesus Christ and his resurrection in a human body—a body (not just a spirit) who now sits at the right hand of God the Father—makes it abundantly clear that we are not just souls that happen to be trapped in bodies, but integrated bodies-minds-souls. To treat one part without treating the others is shortsighted and ultimately dehumanizing.

There are many reasons for the lack of Christian options for holistic medicine, including a continuing Gnosticism, which sees matter and spirit in opposition, and a fear of anything that might be construed as "new age-y," which alternative medicine often is.

Opening the door to unwanted spiritual forces through alternative medicine is a valid concern. I'm not, however, calling for a superficial Christian adaptation of alternative medicine, such as "Christian yoga" or "Christian qigong," in the same way that Christians have taken up other elements of pop culture and simply changed the language slightly. Instead, I'm challenging the church and individual members to think deeply – with our bodies as well as our minds – about what it would look like to faithfully treat the whole person in any form of healing we undertake.

Protestants in particular have dropped the ball in this area. As Brown mentions in her interview with CT, Protestants are word-centered. Not only does this create a blind spot in how we regard religions that emphasize practice and experience, as she points out, it can also create a wedge between our own belief and experience. We tend to work out our faith largely in our minds, disconnected from what our bodies feel.

As a result, we live compartmentalized lives. We go to the doctor to treat our bodies. We go to church to treat our souls. We might go to the psychiatrist to treat our minds. All the while, by neglecting the connections between our bodies, minds, and souls, we walk around feeling less-than-whole in our search for healing. Which is why a deeper conversation on holistic medicine is needed.

What emerges from this conversation will be as diverse as the body of Christ. For Christian doctors, it might mean having the courage to stand up to an efficiency- and profit-driven medical system by actually taking the time to get to know patients for who they are outside of their illnesses. For Christians who do use forms of alternative medicine, it might mean recognizing that our spirits as well as our bodies are engaged, then discerning what is in line with God's truth and what isn't about these practices and seeking out (or even offering) "theologically filtered" (as our Christian doula called it) versions.

For Christian massage therapists, doulas, dancers, nutritionists, etc., it might mean contributing our unique gifts of attending to the body to the ministry of the church and teaching others what it means to honor the body. For churches, it might mean opening up a space for dialogue about medical issues of all sorts, from mental health to eating disorders to alternative medicine, as well as encouraging members to practice their gifts and share their experiences in this area.

Christ, the great physician himself, was and is a practitioner of holistic medicine. He saw each person he encountered for the whole of who they were, simultaneously treating body, mind, and spirit. He used creative means to heal people, from prayer and fasting to making a spit-dirt salve, based on their unique situations. May his Spirit guide us as we serve as his hands and feet for healing in our broken world.

Some highlights from our March/April issue.