Over at “The Gospel Coalition Blog,” they’ve posted a video of a discussion that occurred at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary about Brian McLaren’s new book A New Kind of Christianity. The panel featured faculty members of SBTS and was moderated by the seminary’s president, R. Albert Mohler Jr. Spoiler alert, they hated the book.

Now, I’m not Southern Baptist and usually I’d leave something like this alone, but there are a couple things worth noting here. Also worth noting is though I’ve read McLaren’s other books, I’ve yet to read all of A New Kind of Christianity. So I’m not going to take issue or disagree with any of the panelists’ comments about the book…though I’m sure that after I complete it I’ll have plenty of disagreements.

Rather, what I’d like to draw your attention to here are two things. The first is that the gentlemen from SBTS offer us a new kind of panel discussion in which they assembled five faculty members who all agree that the book is rubbish and they spend an hour talking about how they all agree on this point. There is no disagreement on this panel, and no representation from the other side, let alone from Mr. McLaren himself. I know this isn’t really behind anyone’s back since it’s posted online, but when five men talk trash about someone without allowing any space for a defense, it feels a little underhanded.

Secondly, as is bound to happen when five people gang up on one, the attacks become uncomfortably personal, beginning early in the discussion when each panelist has the opportunity to say just how much they disliked the book and continuing throughout.

In the fourth minute we hear Dr. Bruce Ware admit that he’s “thought of Brian McLaren for years as a wolf in sheep’s clothings [sic],” who has finally taken off the clothing and revealed the wolf. This kind of attack culminated in Jim Hamilton’s outrageous assertion that, “He’s the craftiest of the serpents of the field and he’s following in the train of his father the Devil.” He hesitates and says, “Maybe I’m over speaking here,” before he continues, “I hope the guy repents and comes to faith.”

I’m absolutely not impartial when it comes to this discussion. McLaren’s The Secret Message of Jesus had a great impact in the practice of my faith. But even where there is disagreement, there should be a discussion of these disagreements wherein both sides are allowed the opportunity to speak. And, at the very least, the attacks should be limited to the book and not the author himself.

I recently received word through a new friend that The New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good captured audio of Fox News’ Glenn Beck encouraging listeners to leave their church if it proclaims a concern for social justice on his March 2^nd radio broadcast. Here’s the quote from Beck:

"I'm begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"

Listen to the audio here.

He then picked up this thread on his television show that evening:

"Communists are on the left, and the Nazis are on the right. That's what people say. But they both subscribe to one philosophy, and they flew one banner. . . . But on each banner, read the words, here in America: 'social justice.' They talked about economic justice, rights of the workers, redistribution of wealth, and surprisingly, democracy."

Click here for the video.

You don’t need me, or The New Evangelical Partnership, to tell you that Beck is crossing the line, but you can do something about it. Check out the campaign they set up and pledge your support for their video response project. If you can’t do that, here’s an alternative to Beck’s suggestion, if your church is actively engaged in bringing about social justice, hug your pastor.          

I want to draw your attention to a currently free but presumably soon (as in 2011) to be not free section at NYTimes.com, “Opinionator.” For every writing class I teach I always choose an interesting article, usually an op-ed piece, magazine essay or blog post as a means of getting the students minds engaged and ready to tackle the other tasks of the day. This is particularly important this semester as my classes are either at nine in the morning, or seven at night. When I don’t already have a piece in mind for discussion, I almost always turn to “Opinionator.” There, several Times writers get to sound-off in an online-only column about, it seems, whatever they want.

In the last few days, two entries in particular have caught my attention and, I’m sure, will be any of interest to any readers for whom the intersection between faith and culture/public life is a concern. That is, presumably, all of you.

Certainly by now you’ve heard the Buzz. Or, heard of Buzz. Ummh. Heard the buzz about Buzz?

Whatever, Google has a new social network-y thing out which they’ve been kind enough to drop into your Gmail inbox. If you don’t see it yet, you can probably go here to activate it. Once you get Buzz you will see a new option appear right below your inbox with a cute little graphic that looks a lot like the Google Talk graphic but with a few primary colors inside it.

And before your very eyes your Gmail inbox has been transformed into a social networking hub. You already had the “conversation” style email interface, then Google went and tossed in a IM client in the form of Talk, or Gchat, as it has come to be called, and now you have Buzz. Not only does Google know everything about you (as evidenced, also, by their confidence in getting your Buzz started by suggesting a few friends), but now you never need to go to another website ever.

On Wednesday, while the rest of the world, including me, was wondering how Apple’s tablet might revolutionize reading, arguably the greatest living writer, passed away.

J.D. Salinger, known around the world for his eminent coming of age novel, Catcher in the Rye died in his New Hampshire home at the age of 91. Catcher is a great novel, no doubt. And I’m sure for many people it was life changing. Salinger changed my life too, but with a different book, Franny and Zooey.

To say that reading these two stories back in 2002 altered the direction my life took in the years since is an understatement. I want to be clear as humanly possible here. When the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the foundation of every belief I had developed in my 20 years on the earth was at the moment of its greatest jeopardy in my life, when doubt held me so tightly that I could barely breathe, Seymour’s Fat Lady, a specter of a character that lingers at Zooey’s conclusion saved my faith.

Well, yesterday brought two big speeches. There was that one late in the evening, something about politics, or the economy...I'm not sure really, it was late. And then there was the big one, right in the middle of the day, the one that introduced something truly new and innovative. I'm talking, of course, about the introduction of the long awaited iPad.

Okay, I'm going to be adult and avoid making jokes about the name as everyone else seems to be doing. But the fact is, in many ways this announcement really did overshadow the President's State of the Union address. As I observed (and tweeted about) yesterday, the number one searched-for phrase on Google yesterday was about the rumored Apple tablet. On top of that, there were no less than three additional entries regarding the announcement of the device. Coming in at a humble number six, was something about the State of the Union speech.

In the Opinion section of Sunday’s New York Times, literary critic James Wood (who I mentioned a few months back was at the n+1 panel on Evangelicals and Intellectuals and subsequently mentioned in my opinion piece on that subject) contributed an essay entitled “Between God and a Hard Place.”

The essay explores two ways that God has been attributed to the earthquake in Haiti and offers a bit of historical perspective to the genre of preaching he refers to as the “earthquake sermon.” In the span of two paragraphs we travel with Wood through London and Lisbon, hear the voices of Leibniz, Voltaire and even John Wesley before landing on our very own “earthquake-sermonizer,” Pat Robertson.

In mentioning Leibniz, Wood obviously directs the reader to the concept of “theodicy.” For those not familiar with the term it is essentially the continued belief in the goodness of God in the face of evil. Robertson’s response, Wood explains, is “classic theodicy.”

Photo via Brooklyn Vegan

I’ve always wanted to see what the inside of Radio City Music Hall looks like, but I’ve never wanted to see the Rockettes. Fortunately, on Tuesday night the Swell Season and Josh Ritter played a sold out show in that famed hall for which my wife and I were fortunate enough to have tickets.

Needless to say, I was very excited. And, really, the wanting-to-see-Radio-City-thing paled in comparison to the caliber of the show we were treated to. You may know The Swell Season as Glen Hansard (also of The Frames) and Marketa Irglova.

Not ringing a bell? Uhoh.

Ok, fine, you may also know them as that amazing duo that starred in the movie "Once" and won an Academy Award for best song for "Falling Slowly" from that film.

Last Thursday night at The Riverside Church on Manhattan’s upper west side, New York Faith and Justice sponsored an event, in collaboration with several other organizations, celebrating the launch of Jim Wallis’ new book Rediscovering Values On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street. As the event’s title suggested, however, this was “more than a book launch,” rather it was a conversation with Wallis and several other local leaders on the various subjects raised in the book.

The evening started out with a performance by Joy Ike, a Nigerian singer/songwriter from Pittsburgh. Her smooth jazz songs with thought-provoking lyrics were an unconventional but welcome way to begin the conversation.

After Ike’s performance, a spoken word piece and several introductions including that of Lisa Sharon Harper, co-founder of New York Faith and Justice and the evening’s panel moderator, Jim Wallis finally took to the podium. In his short remarks, which were to serve as the keynote and jumping off point for the conversation, he suggested that a moral recovery was needed in addition to an economic recovery in order for the nation to truly spring back from the global economic crisis. Picking up on a theme he outlined in his 2005 book, God’s Politics, Wallis made clear his belief that the economy is a moral issue and that a budget is a moral document.

I’m having an identity crisis.

My most recent and probably most significant publication to date was in the Wall Street Journal, a publication well known for its conservative bent. In fact, earlier drafts of my op-ed piece featured some rather blatant political statements that the friends and colleagues whom I asked to read the drafts pointed out were at odds with the editorial stance of the Journal. I didn’t heed their suggestion to nix those parts and instead watched them get chopped at the hands of my skillful editor, to the enhancement of the piece, I ultimately agreed.

As a result of the Journal piece I have received many comments, on the WSJ site itself, but also here on Patrol and through email. Many of these have been positive and others negative, but what is most surprising is that a number of the congratulations I have received came from conspicuously conservative sources. This has led to some interesting interactions with leaders at organizations with which I never imagined myself having any affiliation; all of this in addition to the fact that I recently signed on to teach a course at a rather conservative Christian college.

These experiences have jostled me a bit and more often than not I find the agitator in me (who is very much alive and well) wanting to scream, “BUT I’M LIBERAL!!!” Though, to date, I have resisted. Or did I just blow it?