Holloween Candy Chute

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This video is a little long, but we had a lot of fun making it.

Faith in Progress vs. "Just like Jesus"

One of the books that blew my mind wide open, haunting me, popping into my brain during the most unexpected of conversations is the book "Capitalism and Progress: a Diagnosis of Western Society by Bob Goudzwaard. It is a book I read during school, so don't think that I read Adam Smith, or Ayn Rand, or Pascal just for fun or so that I can be pretentious. No, I had to read it, but I'm glad I did.

Its main tenant is that throughout history society has believed in different things. These things have been as various as fertility gods, emperors, queens, nobles, holy men, ideals like socialism, religion, psychology, even nihilism. It seems that people been to believe in something.

Goudzwaard makes a compelling case that our current social faith is placed upon the the idea of progress, and that this belief in progress can rightly be called religious.

"These motives can be described as religious because they embrace hope for the future, faith in God or man, and love for self or others. From this depth level we have always received, and still receive today, the impulse to think, to live, to work, and thus to contribute to the ongoing construction and reconstruction of that gigantic coral reef which is called western society."


If then, western society in general has a faith in progress in the same way a Christian believes in Christ, that is, as the underlying principles guiding every aspect of life, where does this belief evidence itself? The answer is everywhere. Television commercials tell us that our skin can always get smoother. Politicians convince us that we can always live in a better tomorrow. Economist believe in an ever-improving economy. I'll let you find more examples of this yourself, perhaps in your own life.

Which is all a set up to ask this question, "How much does this idea of infinite progress influence the way the church presents the message of Christ?" I have been thinking about this ever since I read two books that blew my mind even wider open, both my Mr. Fred Rogers. That's right, the same Fred Rogers who hosted Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. His books, while being accessible and short, I would feel place alongside the most terse of systematic theology textbooks. He has the same message that he always had, "You are enough, just the way you are. You are worthy of love, right now, just as your are."

These books were such a healing balm to me because I had been living in a world where the dominate religious communities have intertwined a faith in Christ with a faith in progress. Churches call believers to become more like Jesus, which on the surface seems like a good thing. But we should pause a moment when our faith fits too neatly alongside the dominate faith of the surrounding culture.

Does Jesus really want to improve me? I'm not so sure, and if he does, I'm not so sure I'm not confusing my faith in Jesus with my faith in progress.

Our faith in progress is slick, tricky, and so subtle that it is often undetectable. Despite what we are told, there are limits to human growth, consumption, self-actualization, intelligence, and economic growth, even if I don't know what they are.

I derive some unique comfort knowing that there may also be limits to just how much "like Jesus" I can be. Maybe I'm just as like Jesus as I'm ever going to be, and maybe He's just fine with that.

The Ever Growing Trash Bins

I was out for a late season run today, enjoying the warm wind and the late afternoon sunshine, when an odd thought came upon me. I had turned away from the beach and back towards the neighborhoods when I noticed that it must have been trash day in this particular region of Grand Haven because there was the telltale sign of empty, up-turned recycle bins next to brown or blue trash bins. And I thought to myself, "When in the world did trash cans get so enormous?"

It is almost silly to still call them "cans" anymore. It would be more apt to call them mini-dumpsters. It was a change that happened so slowly that I don't think anyone noticed. I know I didn't.

There was a time when people had to carry their trash cans to the curb on trash day. They were round, usually metal, and about four feet high, and as a kid we all imagined that Oscar the Grouch could pop out at any time.

Then some evil genius decided that if he (and I'm sure it was a man) added wheels, slightly to one side, not only would he be able to save the strain on his back, he would be able to move heavier loads.

But that wasn't enough, we switched over to plastic, then thicker plastic, and for awhile that was enough advancement, but then the flip-top canister came along and changed the way the game was played. The Flip-Top (FT among those "in the know") is the Micheal Jordan of trash recepticals. Soon many garbage companies were even providing these to customers because they added the automated dumping mechanism to their truck which was a good thing because it help saved garbagepeople from throwing out thier back by trying to lift one more of your garbage cans full of cinder block chunks.

And if life-in-refuse had stopped there we would all have gone on living happily with our modestly sized, easily wheelable garbage canisters. But then they made the extra-large canisters (the Shaquille O'Neal of trash) which have become so prevalent, so common-place that we have forgotten that there every was anything else. Caryn and I share one of these with our downstairs neighbors and it could easily sleep a family of four comfortably. It has to be somewhere between 80-100 gallons.

If you have ever moved into a larger house you know that you live in the space that you have. We buy things to fill our rooms. It takes reaching the limits of storage space that we begin to clear out some of the clutter. Which begs the question, "What would happen if everyone where forced to use smaller trash cans?" Would we be more aware of everything we throw away? Is it too easy to through something away knowing full well that there is plenty of room for it in the mini-dumpster (MD). No one will see how much or how little anyone else is wasting because who could possibly fill such a large container. And yet people do. Thank the Lord for the hinge-lid smash-down! Without which we might have to reveal to the world that we through away three times our body weight every week.

I'm not suggesting you throw away less, though that would not hurt, all I ask is that the next time your neighborhood has trash day, take a second and think about how blasphemously large everyone's trash cans are, and maybe shed a tear or two.

Bikers For Bethany

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