Over the last month or so I’ve had a few discussions with various people about William Young’s recent novel The Shack. I’ve posted a rather lengthy essay about the book on my blog, but anytime I try to review a book, the book review turns into a discussion of something else in a couple of paragraphs. Sure enough, that happens here.

In case you don’t want to plow through a 5,000 word essay, here’s a brief summary:

Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill in Seattle is doing two neat experiments.  First, they created a website in which the mass public can submit a question to be answered by Driscoll.  Then, the community voted on the questions that they’d most like Driscoll to answer.  He’s actually preaching sermons based on these questions now.  You can check out video of his sermons at http://marshillchurch.org/.  The top 9 questions have been decided and you can see the results here:  http://askanything.marshillchurch.org/. 

Recently, Driscoll polled the audience in real time.  He asked them to send questions to him in real time.  He would then answer the questions right there on the spot.  No question was off the table.  Anything could be asked.  The questions are “mature” in nature and deal with topics that you don’t traditionally hear in a church setting.  In fact, this is Driscoll’s take on the questions.  Here is a set of 11 questions and Driscoll’s response.

Man, David burst my bubble today. Bear Grylls, the guy on “Man Versus Wild” on the Discovery Channel was like my hero. I dreamed of adventures in the wild like him. And then David told me about this and rel="nofollow"> rel=”nofollow”>this.

Guess I’m gonna’ have to switch my allegiance to Les Stroud on “Survivorman”. At least he’s for real. Sigh.

Robert Weber in his book Ancient-Future Faith asserts that future wars are likely to be cultural wars as opposed to wars between civilizations. He points to the rise of Muslims around the world as an example (keep in mind that he wrote this in 1999!) He states, “Muslims will always be Muslims before they will be Americans or members of any other culture of civilization.”

The latest American spiritual contribution to our contemporary culture - Disney World meets the Holy Land for the estimated 50 million tourists trekking to Florida on pop culture pilgrimages. USAToday has an article.

What better place to locate it than Orlando? The Land of glitzy, overpriced, make-believe? Ah, but there looks to be trouble in paradise.

… when there’s apparently now a market - not in Baghdad but in the U.S. - for bullet-proof bookbags? It’s marketed as “on the spot protection against guns and knife violence”. Man, the world is a lot different than when I was in high school in the late 60s & early 70s when the weapon of choice was a spitball. Even more sobering, the web site cautions that “Due to the overwhelming response to our products you may experience some difficulties with our checkout process.” And who is largely to blame here?

What I really want for Christmas to deal with all those idiots who …

- believe they can safely drive on the Parkway at rush hour in the rain at night while jabbering
- need to coordinate their social life in the middle of a movie
- regale the entire restaurant with the most intimate conversations
- insist on disrupting virtually every meeting they are in
- rudely interrupt every conversation they are involved in to slavishly respond as a Borg