August 2008

A reader recently asked me what Scientology believes.  This is the best way to explain it:

Have you seen Wordle yet? It is a very cool tag cloud generation program. You can give it text, a URL, or a del.icio.us account and it will generate a tag cloud. Check it out! Here’s mine:

Back when I was working for Microsoft, we loved to evangelize the folks who were the “innovators of technology.” These are the individuals who were very eager to try new ideas and new technology. They were less concerned about the downside of what happens if something goes wrong, than they were about experiencing the cutting-edge.

We wanted the innovators to try new stuff first, like it, and then tell “early adopters” about it. The early adopters were connected to broader communities than the innovators and became “influential end users” who would provide opinion leadership to the rest of the adopters. These remaining adopters could be categorized as “early majority,”  ”late majority,” and “laggards.” [click to continue...]

Last week my old friend Jeff Andrus sent me the manuscript for his newest book, POSERS.  Like his previous Tracer series of books, POSERS is a mystery.  I do love a good whodunnit!  And Jeff is a top-notch writer and shows it in this project. With his permission, I am excerpting the first 3 pages here. Notice how he writes so visually, drawing the reader in with detail and nuance.  I love it and I hope you do as well!

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A new take on an old saying:

If I had a penny for every time I was asked, “Is Barack Obama a Christian?” I’d be a millionaire by now. 

Truthfully, if I had ten dollars for every time I’ve been asked this, I’d have just enough to buy a new MacBook Air (with the speed bump and better battery life that is rumored to be coming out next month).

History

Early in the 2008 Presidential campaign the far-right made sure everybody knew Obama’s full name was Barack Hussein Obama and that he attended an Islamic school while living in Indonesia.  The implication was, if America’s top enemies of recent years were Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, then surely this man who’s name is similar must be a Muslim and evil as well!

Obama’s campaign reacted and said, No, Barack is a believing Christian and used be known as Barry up until he graduated law school.

Then came the whole Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright and Trinity United Church bruhaha.

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Have you ever felt like you were living in the Twilight Zone?  Well I certainly have this last month.  I feel like I’m looking at a world filled with people I don’t recognize anymore.  Here’s why I say this:

I have gotten more hate email this month than I have in my entire life.  I have been called the most vile and disgusting names because I said I didn’t think  Al Gore was a Vision Caster.   One person even emailed a friend of mine telling him he was disgusting too, just because he knew me.

I received an email saying that a Jihad has been declared against me because I defiled the Prophet Mohamed in THE GODS OF BUSINESS.

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For the last week and a half I have been sharing with you some of my summer reading. I have to wonder, though, if any of this matters. Do people read anymore?

The New York Times

The “Old Gray Lady,” the historical nickname for THE NEW YORK TIMES, recently did a piece entitled “Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?” In true journalistic form. the writer see-sawed back and forth on the question, not wanting to alienate anyone by being too opinionated.

The “take-away” of this piece is that their answer is “no,” although their “no” is as qualified as President Clinton’s “is.”

Whatever the answer to their question is, it is less important than how the question itself is defined.

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The third book I read while on vacation was VINTAGE JESUS by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2007).

Mark Driscoll

Driscoll is the pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. I heard him speak a few years ago after some controversy erupted about his conservative views in the local Seattle newspaper. He replied that he was a minority: “A married and straight white-male who eats meat, is faithful to his wife, and believes in Jesus.” That statement is typical of Driscoll: humorous, edgy, theologically conservative, evangelical, all the while being culturally relevant.

VINTAGE JESUS is no different.

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