Black Friday Bewilderment

I'm a bit baffled—bewildered, even—about Black Friday. I guess my confusion lies most in how I should feel about Black Friday. I am confused because I know somewhere inside that American excess is an end in itself. I know that buying more and more stuff, or even giving more and more stuff—while fun—is not always the best way to spend one's money.

Bah humbug.

No, I will not be heading out at 5 or 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day to begin my seasonal shopping. Nor will I rise from my slumber at 4 a.m. the next morning. I guess I just don't think the 'super' deals outweigh the chaos created by them.

Still, I do enjoy 'stuff.'

There, I've admitted it.

I admit that I'm attracted to all of those advertisements leading up to Black Friday. I'm attracted to buying DVDs for $2.00, or getting a great deal on an electronic gadget. I'm very visual, and all that stuff really fascinates me.

And it also baffles me.

It baffles me because I'm not sure how to feel about Black Friday. For small-business owners, this is a critical weekend for their livelihoods. For many others, this time of year provides needed seasonal employment. And for many, like myself, this weekend is a chance to buy some gifts for my family and friends.

I'm not sure what point I am making, except to say that I struggle with Black Friday and all that it reveals about our culture. Ultimately, I wish that I would be as willing to spend money on a World Vision catalog or a similar cause as I am on Amazon.com.

And that's where I'm at with this post-holiday holiday.

What are your feelings about Black Friday?

Thank God A Hospital Doesn't Run Like A Church

As a seminarian, I read a lot. But not only books. Also church websites. Comparing layout and branding stuff, mostly. And when I get to the differing theologies of these various churches, I'm a little disenchanted. One local church website had an information box that read, "Are you looking for a better life? Are you looking for love, help, vision, and purpose? Know Him." Really? Better life by knowing and following Jesus? Better life by following this man who called people to leave behind everything they hold dear, to pick up their cross, and to deny themselves daily? Better life?

And then there's the whole salvation piece. Some churches lay out a basic method for the salvation of one's soul. Here's one example I found: Salvation is the free gift of God's grace and cannot be earned in any way. We receive God's grace by putting faith in Christ — making Him Lord of our lives, repenting of our sin, confessing our faith in Jesus as God, and being baptized, immersed, into Christ (which is a rather long list immediately following the phrase "cannot be earned in any way"). Other church websites put a different twist on it: We believe that there is nothing any person can do or say to "earn" God's favor or their own salvation. Our theology of mission does NOT include "winning believers for Jesus Christ" because salvation, in the Lutheran tradition, comes from God by grace, not from making a decision to accept Jesus.

And while I'm not knocking any one particular theology, I must admit the incongruity between them is discouraging.

Good thing hospitals don't work this way.

Can you imagine a world where at a hospital in Atlanta you might get treated for a common virus with a certain antibiotic (pretty ineffective for 'viruses,' anyway)—and in Charlotte you might receive a completely different medication for the same virus. Or what if a pacemaker implantation involved very specific steps at one hospital, and a completely different method at another. Preposterous as this might sound, it's exactly what churches do (and have done for thousands of years). The heart of the problem is the holy Scriptures from which Christians draw their beliefs and theologies. There are so many varying ways to interpret these Scriptures that no one group can truly claim authority.

And though inconsistent on many matters of faith, perhaps this is how it's meant to be. As author Peter Rollins has put it,

"To take our ideas of the divine and hold them as if they correspond to the reality of God is thus to construct a conceptual idol built from the materials of our mind."

So can we say anything 'true' about God?

I'm not sure we truly can.