Seminary Dropout 45: Kerry Weber, Author of ‘Mercy in the City’

kerry weberKerry Weber is a Mercy Associate and Managing Editor of America magazine. She is an alumna of the Mercy Volunteer Corps and of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She lives in New York City.

The Corporal Works of Mercy are 7 acts. Six come from Matthew 25:34-40 and the final one comes from the Book of Tobit.

1. To feed the hungry.
2. To give drink to the thirsty.
3. To clothe the naked.
4. To harbour the harbourless.
5. To visit the sick.
6. To visit the imprisoned.
7. To bury the dead.

Kerry had an apiphany when she realized she never did any of these things. Then, she set out to change that.

 

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Mercy In The City is Kerry’s real life tale of loving God by serving the homeless, meeting with those in prison, giving away clothing, and more. Oh yeah, and the entire time she also gave up sugar and alcohol!! It’s fun, honest, and most of all heartfelt.


Be sure to check out sermonsmith.com


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Seminary Dropout 44: Preston Sprinkle, Author of Fight: A Christian Case for Nonviolence

PrestonSprinklePreston Sprinkle is a New York Times bestselling coauthor, he also has a PhD in New Testament from Aberdeen University and currently teaches at Eternity Bible College, and will be moving to Boise, Idaho with his family to help EBC establish a new campus there.

You can find Preston online at PrestonSprinkle.com.

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Preston joins me to talk about his latest book Fight: A Christian Case for Non-Violence.Preston set out to see what the Bible had to say about violence, and what he found was shocking.

On the show we talk about…

-how the early church  felt about  war.
-what Jesus said about violence.
-some myths about violence in the Old Testament.
-some common objections from Christians about nonviolence.


Remember to take the Seminary Dropout Survey if you haven’t already.

Also remember that if you want to hear Michael Gungor on Seminary Dropout, then go tell him on twitter by tweeting ‘Hey  I’d love to hear you on  with .’ If you don’t have twitter you could go to the Gungor facebook page and say the same thing (dropping the twitter handles).


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Seminary Dropout 43: David Leo Schultz, Director & Producer of ‘Ragamuffin’

dls

David Leo Schultz has had a little bit of experience in show business, even worked with heavy weights like Chevy Chase. Lucky for us David is also a fan of the music and life of Rich Mullins, so much so that he approached Dave Mullins (Rich’s brother) about making a movie about Rich’s life. David talks about that interesting first meeting with Dave, how he originally got shot down, but then was invited for a car ride. David later found out that unbeknownst to him the fate of the entire movie hinged on that car ride. The rest is history.

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I won’t go into the movie too much in these show notes, I already wrote a review and plus, you need to hear all of the details from David himself in the podcast.

If you’re interested in the Ragamuffin Retreats we mentioned in the podcast, you can find out more info here.


*Contest*

I have a DVD of Ragamuffin that could be yours. To enter to win, go to Seminary Dropout in iTunes, subscribe & leave a review, then leave a comment below indicating if you did one or both of those things. You’ll be entered to win once or twice based on those factor. I’ll announce the winner in the next weeks episode.


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Like I said on the show, we’re trying something new. I’m enlisting your help in launching twitter campaigns to get the attention of some hard to reach people who would make great guests on Seminary Dropout. The first person is Michael Gungor. To help me book Michael tweet:
“Hey  I’d love to hear you on  with .”

Guest Post by Stephen Carter

Stephen Carter is a writer, husband, father, & friend. He lives in Portland with his wife Rachel, and 2 beautiful girls, Avery & Rylee. When he’s not reading or writing, he enjoys a local micro-brew, or a strong cup of coffee. He is passionate about literature, theology, justice, Daniel Day-Lewis movies, U2 records (but with strong reservations about No Line on the Horizon), and believes that the right words can change the world. He can be found on: Twitter: @stephenedwardc Web:stephenecarter.wordpress.com Email: stephenecarter@icloud.com. Stephen’s site was originally attacked by some kind of porn virus and didn’t have anywhere to post this. I offered to post it here as a guest post and he obliged. I’m happy to say that his site is back & it’s porn free. You should check it out – stephenecarter.com

 

It is cold out. One of those desert nights that just slightly stings the inside of my nose as I inhale, each breath a sharp reminder of my existence. I pull my cloak tighter around my shoulders, straining to get near the fire. This is not a dream, as much as I wish it was.


I’m trying to push his words out of my mind. Trying to think of anything else. 

“3 times.”

He clearly wasn’t in his right mind. Who knows how long it’s been since he has slept. It’s like he doesn’t know who I am anymore. One minute we’re sitting together sharing the Passover meal, the next he’s talking about his blood and body and betrayal. One minute we’re sitting in Gethsemane, praying with him, the next he’s being arrested and dragged away. Judas. Betrayal. He said this would happen. 

The wind kicks up, the fire flickers, and we all push closer. Soon the sun will be up, and I can get away from this crowd. 

What are they doing to him in there? He’s been with them for hours. How long could this possibly take? What wrong has he done? 

“You were with Jesus. The man from Galilee.”

Her voice is high pitched. Soft, but pointed. She knows who she is talking to. She is a servant girl, but her words are sharp. Not accusatory, but direct. 

“I dont’ know what you’re talking about.” 

The words escape my lips before I even realize I am saying them. Will I be lumped in with him? Will they drag me off into the Sanhedrin along side of him? Heaven knows what they would do to me in there. He’s a Rabbi. I’m a fisherman. They certainly won’t show me as much mercy as they’re showing him. Forgive me Jesus. 

I breathe into my hands, pull my cloak tighter, and head toward another one of the fires. Standing around with that servant girl isn’t going to do me any good. She’ll just keep pressing the issue, and I don’t need that right now. My Rabbi is on trial. I can’t focus on much else. 

“This fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth.” 

Another servant girl. This time her words came louder, lightly laced with accusation.

“I promise, I don’t know the man!”

What am I doing? I got out of a boat in the middle of a storm to go to this man. I cut a man’s ear off for him. I have given my entire life to this Rabbi and his teachings for the last three years. What am I gaining by denying that? They’ve seen me with him. They know who I am. Forgive me Jesus. 

The sun is beginning to wake. I can finally start to see without the aid of the fire, albeit not well. I shake a rock from my sandal and find an unattended fire. It’s starting to die, but still, the warmth is comforting. 

“You’re one of them!”
“You were with him!”
“Your accent gives you away.”

There are a multitude of them now. They’ve congregated around my fire and are unrelenting in their accusation. They know who I am. If word spreads much more, they may drag me in there. I can’t fight them all. They’ll overtake me. I’m in trouble if I don’t get out of here. 

“Damnit I swear to God I don’t know him!” 

The words hadn’t finished leaving my tongue before I heard it. The rooster. 

“3 times.” 

As I back away from them, the crowd parts, and I see him. They’re taking him to Pilate. Bloody and bruised, his eyes pierce me. He’s not angry with me. This look is different. It almost looks like pity. He is being drug from the Sanhedrin, has been beaten and who knows what else, and he is pitying me. 

I quickly turn my gaze. I can’t. It’s too much. My entire body is shaking. The tears are hot, salty, and when paired with the nausea, my soul feels like it is dying. I wretch. What have I done? Dear God what have I done? 

He was right. He said this would happen. Everything he’s said would happen, has happened. 

Forgive me Rabbi. I still love you. I really do. 
…stephen carter…

Upcoming Seminary Dropout Guests

For those interested in seeing who the upcoming guests are beforehand and posing possible questions for the guests, here’s your chance.

Here is everyone I currently have booked. If you have a question for a guest, leave a comment with 1.) You’re name. 2.) The guests name. & 3.) Your question for that guest.

Jen Hatmaker

Jennie Allen

Cherith Norling

John Mark Mcmillan

Movie Review: Ragamuffin

‘Our fathers were our models for God, if our fathers bailed, what does that tell you about God?’
-Tyler Durden, Fight Club

ragamuffinMedia and Christianity have had an uneasy relationship probably ever since the reformation. Believers and church leaders incorrectly interpreting the second commandment (You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Exodus 20:4), forbid the making of art in many cases. 

I can’t help but wonder if we’re still seeing the lingering effects of that bad theology.

Most Christians with discerning tastes have completely given up on seeing a good ‘faith-based’ movie. I would count myself as a part of this group. However, non-discerning Christians, those who are blinded to the sheer stupidity and ineptitude of a faith-based movie because of it’s supposed ‘message’, they love these movies. They can’t get enough. They pay big money to rent out entire theaters to host special screenings and invite their friends to see these atrocities.

Several years ago, Fire Proof, the Kirk Cameron vehicle was released to an onslaught of Christians frothing at the mouth to see a movie that ‘promoted their values’. ‘You need to see it’, they said. ‘It’s so good’, they said. I tried to keep an open mind. I hoped for the best. Kate and I made it about 30 minutes in before we cried uncle. We couldn’t handle any more chewing of the scenery, we longed for a world with a trace of subtlety and nuance, and our intelligence was insulted.

Word to the wise: The message can not be separated from the medium.

Speaking of the message; most faith-based movies seem to be reversed engineered starting with the Sunday school lesson, adding as many tired tropes as possible, awful acting, ham-fisted writing, police interrogation room lighting, and uninspired directing.

I say all this to set the stage for the attitude I had while going into Ragamuffin. I could only assume I was Charlie Brown in a full sprint towards Lucy holding the football that would surely be pulled away at the last second, yet again.

Ragamuffin, a bio-pic about Contemporary Christian Music artist Rich Mullins, opens with pages sheet music floating to the ground in the distance against a black background while the voice over of the character who the viewer comes to know as Brennan Manning says…

‘I am utterly convinced that on judgment day, the Lord Jesus will ask one question and only one question: Did you believe that I loved you?’

A glimmer of hope. Might this really be any good?

One things for sure, it’s visually beautiful. Interrogation room lighting is nowhere to be found. The quality cinematography and colorization go a long way here.

The film isn’t perfect, in fact it’s messy in parts.

The acting is sometimes uneven. The actors playing peripheral characters struggle a bit, and a few lines are delivered with misplacedrm enthusiasm. The star Michael Koch is also spotty in places, but when he’s good, he’s really good, his hurt feels real, his joy is palpable, and his singing voice is a spot on Mullins.

There are places in the movie that fall into traps that for some reason are common to faith-based movies. The set and set pieces
sometimes can take the viewer out of the moment especially in scenes of decades past. Among scenes taking place in the 70’s & 80’s, the interior of a house looks a lot like a house built in the 2000’s, a dodge van looks like a late-model, the headphones look an awful lot like the brand new ones I use to podcast.

In a scene in which Rich sees a movie about St. Francis that will forever change the trajectory of his life, the movie within the movie seems hastily thrown together. It’s just one scene but the actor playing St. Francis looks like a guy pulled out of line at the Taco Bell down the street, his hair flipped up in just right spot and side burns shaped ever so purposefully. These details don’t make or break a viewing experience. Despite what people say this is not why Mad Men is so popular. Meticulous period design by itself is not enough, but these details that can really come together to immerse the viewer in the experience or distract them from it.

The vintage scenes aren’t the only ones that needed a little help. The car belonging to Rich’s music producer has a dent in it featured so prominently in one shot you think it has to come into play in the plot at some point. It doesn’t.

Rich himself, never ages. 1974 Rich looks pretty much just like 1997 Rich. Long hair and facial hair come and go and come again, but really Rich never looks older in the passing years.

The last bone I’ll pick with this movie is the framing device of Rich giving a radio interview that serves as a narration of the movie. Sometimes this comes off as lazy. They say that great writers ‘show instead of tell’. This seems even more true for movies.

Nevertheless, it occurs to me that most if not all of these problems are budget issues, and they aren’t so glaring that they ruin what the movie has going for it.

The subject matter is solid. Rich Mullins has always been a fascinating and inspiring figure, sadly in part because he was such an anomaly. Before I saw the movie I knew the highlights of Rich’s life: although he earned big money from his music career he only took the salary of an average American, he felt a calling to live on a Navajo Reservation to teach music to children, and he died tragically in a car accident. Self sacrifice and oaths of (near) poverty, are not hallmarks of recording artists, Christian or otherwise. Oh and the other thing about Mullins, if you grew up in Evangelicalism in 80’s or 90’s, you sang his songs whether you knew they were his or not.

The parts that most people don’t know about Rich are somewhat shocking. Less shocking that they were struggles of his, and more shocking that a movie marketed to Christians disclosed it.

Rich was a real flesh and blood person who had real struggles. Throughout his life he struggles with loneliness that manifests itself in odd ways like chastising his house and band mates for not leaving a note when the leave the house or hotel. In the midst of an ill-fated engagement he finds that he still can’t escape loneliness.

Rich-and-Dad-300x158Rich has daddy issues that are unrivaled. Rich’s dad was a tough as nails farmer, the no-nonsense, I can’t tell you I love you because I don’t want you to be soft – type of dad. This narrative of not being able to please his father plagues Rich for most of his life. In the ever-present radio interview/voice-over, Rich explains…

‘Growing up people would always say to me that God loved me, but I don’t know, I had a hard time believing that , I wondered if God even liked me. I don’t know, maybe it’s because people also told me that my dad loved me.’ 

This would be the basis for Rich’s disconnect with God for much of his life. It’s a disconnect that many people I know have had because of strained, absent, or downright bitter relationships with their fathers. In fact many within Christianity have given up referring to God as their ‘heavenly father’ while praying because their biological fathers have ruined the concept.

Rich comes across a tape of a sermon by Franciscan priest Brennan Manning. Those familiar with modern Christian literature know Brennan from his book ‘The Ragamuffin Gospel’, in which Brennan discusses his own alcoholism and his need for God’s radicalBrennan-300x158 grace. It’s a modern classic. Rich is so moved by Brennan’s words on that tape that he seeks him out. For someone whose life has been enriched by both of these men, watching them sit across from each other is a little bit like watching Batman talk to Superman in a cross-over issue of Detective Comics (that may be the nerdiest thing I’ve ever written). I won’t go into the details of Brennan & Rich’s relationship because I don’t want to spoil it, but the name of this movie will give you an idea of the impact Manning has on Rich. The real reason I bring this up is because Charles Lawlor’s portrayal Brennan is simply amazing. From reading Brennan’s writings and hearing second-hand stories, Lawlor’s Brennan Manning is exactly who I imagine him to be.

Rich-Smoking-Piano-300x158Rich’s loneliness and the daddy issues are accompanied by his own alcoholism. Therein lies this movies greatest strength – it’s willingness to be honest. Faith-based movies simply do not show their protagonists having real flaws like drinking alcohol to access (and chain-smoking for that matter), and sometimes being kind of an ass to their friends, unless it’s to draw a contrast from their heathen pre-Jesus days, to their holier, steadfast, pure as the driven snow days as a follower of Jesus. Rich had those struggles and Ragamuffin features them bluntly.

The flaws are just a part of the whole of Rich’s life that Ragamuffin skillfully portrays with subtlety and nuance. Rich is also genuine, honest, and unassuming in everything he does. While in the beginning of Ragamuffin I was distracted by those relatively small flaws that I mentioned earlier, I found that somewhere along the way I became deeply invested in this person and profoundly moved by his trials.

Little gems like Rich calling out the contemporary Christian music industry are like a love letter from Rich to the other Christians who love Jesus but hate what modern Christianity has come to represent.

“All these cheesy artists trying to make a buck off of his name. It makes me want to puke.”

Me too Rich, me too.

He tells his producers:

“Look guys, my songs aren’t fill in the blanks, you can’t just add the word ‘Jesus’ in a few more times and expect it to be better… I’m not trying to be a Christian pop star here. I’m just trying to say something true.”

I’ve said something eerily similar in the past about CCM having a quota of “Jesus’s” to forcibly insert into each song. This is truly what makes Ragamuffin a faith-based movie for the rest of us. Here is Rich saying – I’m cynical about the same stuff you’re cynical about.  Rich get’s us.

Rich was broken and flawed and came to know that God loved him in that state.

 

A few odds and ends.

  • There is cursing in this movie (*gasp* *clutches pearls*). People in a movie acting like people in real life, what a concept!
  • Before deciding on Michael Koch to play the role of Rich, the director almost chose Henry Ian Cusick for the role. Many know Cusick as Desmond ‘see you in another life brotha’ Hume from ABC’s Lost.
  • Look for my interview with the director, David Leo Schultz, coming soon to Seminary Dropout.

Seminary Dropout 40: David Gungor & John Arndt of The Brilliance

thebrillianceFriends David Gungor & John Arndt together form the band, The Brilliance. As I say in the interview, they sound a little like a score from an M. Night Shyamalan movie (one of the good early ones), with a little bit of Ben Folds, and David Bazaan thrown in at times, and at the same time it’s something completely unique and groundbreaking.

You can find The Brilliance online at thebrilliancemusic.com

Check out their recent albums:

 

 

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