The Rabbit Room

I agree with both Hank and Tooter. Also Josiah pegs it too!

Amen to all of this! Being real applies to both sides of the spectrum.
Also, this is my favorite episode of King of the Hill, ever. I’m glad to see some commentary on it.

If we change our behavior in an effort to be relevant won’t we eventually wear ourselves thin? The good thing is that God made us with a unique personality and our personality is always relevant to somebody.

To try and be relevant to the masses won’t work because within the mass is a bunch of individuals with their own unique personality.

Oh, and this is my favorite King of the Hill.

Getting ready to take a stroll in the rain on my way to the pub. (I’m actually doing this and only added it because it sounds cool)

“…your not making chrisitianity better, your just making rock and roll worse….” thats great

I was laughing the whole way until Hank said, “I don’t want the Lord to end up in this box.” Then I just about teared up.

Am I allowed to be convicted by King of the Hill?

I’ve never been a fan of “King of the Hill,” but I enjoyed the fact that what the creators did wasn’t preoccupied with being ‘safe’ through using strict allegory. Each side to the argument had both its virtues and its vices.

Thanks SD, for reminding us that, in addition to the suit and tie, it’s okay to forego the fog machine and the lights (and shoot, the electricity, too) if we so choose. Neither is worth the idolatry of itself.

C.S. Lewis (in The Screwtape Letters I think) referred to this as “Christianity-And”.

The good news of Jesus Christ is a struggle to hold on to, as Sarah Clarkson wrote so well last week. When we adopt Christianity-And, we create a situation in which we may grasp more and more to the “And” and struggle less and less with Jesus Himself. Whether it’s Christianity and social justice, Christianity & rock’n roll, or Christianity and Calvin (or John Paul II), the danger is there.

Lord forgive me.

(And wow… King of the Hill struck some eerie realism… I wish I could say they exaggerated further than anything I’ve seen, but… )

[...] Borrowed from a wonderful blog – called The Rabbit Room. [...]

I know of churches that try to prove that, “Church doesn’t have to be boring!” They’re right, of course, but they try to prove it by having a rock concert for worship every week, by having sermons and prayers and dramas and lights and settings that impress and amuse and teach all at once. They are trying to prove that they are worth your time by being God plus entertainment, by drawing comparison to the entertainment industries. But even the richest, biggest, talented, most hardworking mega-church staffs can’t keep pace with the entertainment available in stadiums and on TVs and computers every week, nor do i think they ought to be trying to appeal to our consumeristic instincts to get us to pay attention to God.

If people are bored with church, trying to make church activities fun may hold or get their attention, and you will probably have some opportunity to win some souls. After all, is that not just another way of being all things to all men that by some means we may save them? But if you are ‘faking it’ and trying to be hip/cool/relevant in a way that is not ‘you’ as a person or a church, people will see through it and will be encouraged to be fake themselves or to go find something real.

And for those who do come for the show and stay for God, you had better not expect them to grow in faith just from watching a show every week, because a great many things that need to be taught/learned cannot be transmitted by a rocking worship band and an amusing or impressive 30 minute sermon, no matter how much talent and time you invest into them.

Wow! I wish I could have seen the full episode! That last line, “I don’t want the Lord to end up in this box,” hit a chord with me, too. I’ve always hated fads (probably go to the opposite extreme to avoid them, which isn’t always better), and the current trend of making Christ “accessible” to our contemporary culture drives me nuts. I heard it again yesterday from a father who was saying how much his teens love our church’s service because of the contemporary style and that it keeps them there and interested. It makes much more sense to me that what will keep my kids engaged and interested in church is a real relationship with Christ, and interactions with believers for whom the relationship is real as well. The style must be secondary to the heart.

This reminds me of Ignatius the Ultimate Youth Pastor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLGLBVSpBzY

Right on! Reality is relevant. “Real” is what everyone is most hungry for. Glad to hear Christians saying what I’ve been thinking for a long time. I love that – “I don’t want the Lord to end up in this box.” Good stuff!

I was reading something in Stephen King’s _On Writing_ this week that sort of reminds me of this. I can’t quote him fully on the RR, because his illustration is a few notches too colorful. However, the topic was vocabulary; and he says to use what you’ve got well instead of intentionally attempting to improve yourself in that particular area.

He gives quite a few examples of masterful writing done with simple words vs. painful writing attempting eloquence. My favorite is a Steinbeck quote that is fifty words long, thirty-nine of which have only one syllable. Yet it’s brilliance.

King isn’t as lucid as Sayers on the topic of good writing. However, in his strongest moments, he is advocating a few of the same principles — namely honesty.

BTW. None of this negates the fact that if Jonathan Rogers started watching _American Idol_, he could become a cool Crystal Bowersox and Casey Abrams fan like me.

Aww, shucks.

Now I feel compelled to admit that I cleverly (?) omitted any of the “Ands” I actually struggle with…

Deep theology from King of the Hill? Who knew! And if not theology, at least some very real wisdom…

I wonder sometimes if more Christians are swinging back the other way, disillusioned with the “hip and modern” church movement and craving something deeper. (or maybe it’s just me?) growing up, all my experience with church was “boring” — dressing up, being serious, singing hymns — so I really liked the edgy, “not boring” style when I discovered it. Now, I don’t want a rock show every Sunday, and I kind of miss hymnals. I’m really glad to have finally found a church that finds the balance.

Good thoughts everyone. Real wins over trendy anytime.

Oh, and Andy S: that quote is the greatest. I laughed out loud. So (unfortunately) true sometimes!

Beautiful.

And Jen, you’re not alone. I am sooooo weary of the “new-start,” “let’s revolutionize the church,” “to hell with tradition!” movement. I prefer for Christ to be the movement, and everything else to be secondary. Cheers?

Cheers. couldn’t sum it up better.

I’m not an avid fan of Hank Hill, but I do enjoy his pithy truth nuggets and dogmatic assertions (e.g. “Tom Landry will never be the subject of ‘trivia’ question.”).

A relatively subtle point that caught my attention in the clip came from the scene where the youth pastor was rebuked for attacking Hank’s authority over Bobby. Over the past several years I have watched with great interest the debate within the church between traditionalists and those who embrace more contemporary modes of worship. It seems to me that the battle shouldn’t be about music or tattoos, rather it should be about defending orthodoxy. Of course the problem is that in our pride and selfishness we are predisposed to confuse tradition (however old or new it may be) with orthodoxy. In the clip we see the youth pastor commit to his tradition in violation of Scripture’s commands to honor and respect parents and elders.

I love how Hank takes the time to show Bobby that the important (or real) thing is the Lord. He also did it in a way that he knew would be relevant to Bobby. As we seek to shepherd our children we teach them to value truth/orthodoxy. These things are always relevant and we should value, speak, and teach them. That way when our children become adults they can “do whatever [they] want for the Lord.”

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, Ireasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. – 1Cor 13:11

P.S. I will be attending both a U2 concert and a NASCAR event this summer. I’m ambivalent about Starbucks.

So, I’ve been thinking about this topic for a couple of days. It hit me that there were instances in the Bible where actions of Christ and the apostles would have seemed like radical cultural moves. (Jesus letting a woman wipe His feet with her hair, etc.)

And Paul demonstrated the ability to relate to pagan cultures multiple times: Temple of the Unknown God, becoming all things to all men, etc.

Obviously, traditionalism is not the answer.

Perhaps what has happened in the modern church culture is that we’ve replaced one methodology (“traditionalism”) with another (“radicalism”). Humankind seems prone to replicating religious patterns while missing the heart of obedience over and over again, so this makes sense.

What made the radicalism of Christ and the apostles so different than what I’m seeing today is that it wasn’t self-propelled. It was obedience-propelled. Each step was taken under the influence of the Father, so it couldn’t be franchised.

If this is true, there’s another danger lurking in pendulum swing away from radicalism. For a while, I’ve been thinking that the next religious pattern awaiting “hip” status is liturgical worship. I’m actually starting to see this happen where I live already.

Liturgy is one of my favorite, all-time ways to worship. But I don’t want to find safety in it — because I don’t want to see the heart stripped out of it.

Form is secondary to function, right? I wonder how we can keep obedience central? I wonder how we can keep our hands off the steering wheel let the manifestations of worship flow with the creative diversity characteristic of everything else God has made?

Different *from*. Apologies to Strunk and White.

Good stuff, Becca. It seems like it should be so simple to let Christ be central and let our worship flow out from that with all its amazing diversity. Yet every time I try to discuss it (particularly with people from church who think the all-contemporary or radicalism is “just fine”) they respond with, “Well, no one is ever happy, even if there is a blend. It’s never the right blend.” I try to explain that this is more than music, but inevitably my point falls flat . But then, I’m not trying to lead our services so I suppose I’m not qualified to comment (slight tone of frustrated sarcasm there….).

Isn’t it interesting that every time we think we’ve got it all right, we’ve “cleaned house” and swept everything old and stale and corrupted out the door, it takes little more than a generation or two for us to find ourselves on the receiving end of that broom… It is often justified, because clinging to our “-And” will make us old and stale and corrupted every time.

On another note, I live in Texas, so King of the Hill is pretty relevant (ha!) social commentary down here! In fact, I believe the episode that takes place at the Renaissance fair is based on some real people I may or my not have worked with as a member of the cast of TRF. I definitely did not do myself a favor in the “looking cool” department by admitting that last piece of trivia…guess I’ll have to take a stroll to the pub to redeem my rep. No rain though. I’m not THAT cool!

Ren Faires aren’t cool? I’ve always kinda wanted to go to one.
(says the girl that was sad to miss the local comic convention this year… *notcool*)

[...] H/T Sam Smith at The Rabbit Room. [...]

@Jen: Nope. As I’ve been assured repeatedly by my “cool” Christian friends, Ren Faires are not cool. Unless you go ironically. And I’m pretty sure that dressing up like a fairy with about a pound of glitter makeup, singing madrigals and folk-songs, handing out magical glass stones to small children, and learning to speak “fae” is NOT ironic. Maybe if there were less glitter involved…

But they ARE fun! You should totally go. And dress up. It’s not cool, but it may be the most fun you’ve ever had eating food on a stick.

[...] posted this at the Rabbit Rom the other day. But here it is here. [...]

[...] Somehow this article keeps getting left out, reality is relevant. [...]

Wow! Very well done… I think that it’s really interesting to see what Hank and the Skate-Pastor had to say. And I like even better to see the comments; this is great! I think that the Pastor’s dad’s words were really interesting. I like his words because we don’t always glorify and worship God in the same ways. Some people think that rock is the way, and others a suit and tie. It seems to me that whatever the Spirit of Freedom, and the Freedom of the cross calls us to is what we need to answer.

Some people feel the freedom to eat meat, and others only vegatables, but whatever we do, we do this unto the Lord. That’s my answer, or moreso thoughts.