What's the matter with us?

A three-year-old named Marcus was found wandering the streets in an Ohio town and then quickly placed in foster care. Some time later, Marcus was found bound and gagged, wrapped in a blanket and dead in a closet. His foster parents decided to put him there when they left town for a few days to attend a family reunion. The temperature outside was in the 90�s. The temperature in the closet went well over 100. Marcus died in a closet, tied up like an animal. The flesh on his feet was blistered and torn from his struggle to get free� He was just three-years-old.He was just a baby.�A half-million children like Marcus are drifting through foster care,...

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Burnside is Reborn

We're back, with an all new site.BurnsideWriters.c...

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Posted in: Burnside Writers,Burnside Writers Collective,Jordan

The missing cross

It's easy to be critical of the church, especially retrospectively. Like Monday morning quarterbacks, we can all look back through the centuries and see the folly of crusades, colonization, slavery, and the unholy marriage of political power and wealth with the name of Jesus. These failures are, ostensibly, the reasons offered by millions for their rejection of Christ and, especially, of the church.Surely our failures are part of the story, but I suspect there's more to it than that. Thomas Merton said something to the effect that the crisis among believers and unbelievers is really the same - we are, all of us, recoiling at the cross.Of course,...

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Posted in: Meditations

New Burnside on Monday

This may very well be the final post on the Burnside Blog.On Monday, barring any unforeseen disasters, and requiring a load of work this weekend, we will launch our new site. We've been working on it for a while, and we're thrilled to finally show you what we have. We've also changed our URL. The new site will be at burnsidewriters.com.The blog will still be up, but posts won't go here. Our old site will link directly to our new one. The blog and main site will be integrated. Some of the posts you've seen here will become articles. For shorter pieces, our site will offer an Asides department, for quick links, posts, and videos.I get a...

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Posted in: Burnside Rebuild,Burnside Writers,Burnside Writers Collective,Jordan

Genesis - The Facebook Edition

I'm so glad I have access to David Sessions' Google status, or I would've missed this.And speaking of our friends at Patrol Magazine, they have a terrific editorial on profanity and Christian magazines.We've got a similar piece on censorship and profanity as it pertains to Burnside coming with the launch of our new site...stay tun...

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Posted in: Jordan,patrol magazine

9/11

Relevant Magazine asked a few Burnside writers for short reflections on 9/11.You can read those here.We didn't have a ton of room, but I do want to mention how writing about 9/11 feels vaguely self-absorbed. I mean, think that day changed everyone on some level, but writing on how my thoughts about the world, politics, and war began to shift seem to pale in comparison to people who suffered directly, before and since.(It's also a shame Susan Isaacs' memories weren't posted...she didn't have time to write a piece, but her story is in her book, and it's craz...

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Posted in: 9/11,Dan Gibson,David Johnson,David Zimmerman,John Pattison,Jordan,Relevant

"More coffee, hun?"

I�ve had many memories at Waffle House. But I�m guessing some of you have never even been to one before. For those who don't know, it's a 24 hour grease-pit. A southern staple of grits and hospitality. It originally began in a little suburb outside of Atlanta Georgia in 1955 and now reaches as far north as Pennsylvania / Rhode Island and stretches west to Arizona / Colorado. Sorry Portland, but Waffle House might be my favorite cup of coffee. The coffee is not good, it�s bland. But the atmosphere is ironically endearing in that white-trash sort of way. A classic American icon if you ask me. With three of us at the table my friend looks...

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Posted in: Eric Allen,Juxtaposition,Story,Waffle House

Teach Me To Pray

I write at a kitchen table. There are days when I'd love to have a writer's desk with an old Tiffany lamp perched just so and fountain pens in an empty soup can and copies of The New Yorker strewn about the edges and...but that would be someone else's story. I write at a kitchen table.As I wrote yesterday, I could see him. Then he'd disappear. Then I'd see him again. Rising. Falling. Rising again. You see, his backyard has a trampoline, like our backyard does. I watched him turn flip after flip after flip, I bet twenty in a row, his eyes closed. He was poetry. Our trampoline has a black safety web that feeds our abandon. His does not; he jumps without a net.The lights in his house stay on all night long and the windows are always, always open, every last one, and people are always...

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Wait a minute...THERE'S A WALL HERE!!!

AND IT'S NOT HOLDING BACK PALESTINIANS!!!If there's a single area of the world I would infer would be completely covered by archaeologists, that single area would be Jerusalem.You know what they say: when you infer, you make an in out of 'f' and 'er'.But seriously, they just found a giant wall in Jerusalem. Now the maps in the back of every Bible ever have to be rewritten!!!(When reached for comment, the Christian book industry simply said, "Cha-ching!...

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Posted in: Christian Booksellers Association,history,Israel/Palestine,Jerusalem,Jordan

Ugly Ducklings

I'm trying to remember a worse day to be a Duck fan.It was nearly comical.The Oregon Ducks-Boise State Broncos matchup to kick off the college football season ended up a disaster. From the opening kick-off, the aura played into Boise's hands: the plucky, all-American underdog facing its Nike-funded, evil-empire, neighboring state, BCS rival.In last year's game, a Boise State defender delivered a vicious helmet-to-helmet cheap shot to Oregon QB Jeremiah Masoli after his first pass attempt. It was the one moral ground a Ducks fan could stand on going in, and even then it was reluctant. Before the last two season, most Oregon fans loved Boise...

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Posted in: College Football,Jordan,Oregon Ducks,sports,The Pain of Team Sports

This has to be a joke...

Apparently, Christians aren't the only ones looking to profit off the apocalypse.I'm not sure it's real. (The FAQs say it is!) If it is, though...oh, mama. What a wonderful scheme.(Thanks to reader James for the tip. This blog would be a sad, liberal-infested place without him, and we love him for tha...

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Posted in: Animals,Christian Fads,Jordan

Who wants SEC Championship Game tickets?

Okay, I know a great many of you live in the Pacific Northwest. And I know most of you who care about football care more about the PAC 10. But I'm writing a book on Faith and Fanaticism in the Southeastern Conference, and to generate a little interest in the project I'm giving away two tickets to the SEC Title Game.Here is how the contest works.You have until Oct 17th to enter. On the 18th I will draw 10 names, and those fans will compete in a six-week, knock out style pick 'em contest, with the winner taking two tickets to the big game. So how do you get entered? Easy, there are three ways.1. Join my Facebook group.2. Take the Faith and...

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Posted in: Chad Gibbs,College Football,Contests

"E" - the estrogen factor of American Christianity

I'm intrigued by a study David Murrow did (found here, archives of the Winter 2008 issue) that examined a possible hypothesis regarding the vast percentage difference between the genders when it comes to church attendance. It's about 60/40 in our church, and this is common. This imbalance is unique to Christianity, as Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, and Hindus all display a remarkable gender balance in their faith practices.One could speculate about the 'why' of this, and such speculations abound, including hypotheses that address the patriarchal bent of other religions ("of course men are in... they carry all the power cards!"), or their cultural...

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Posted in: Gender Roles

Derek Webb, Stockholm Syndrome

I like Derek Webb a lot. He's a truly creative guy, working in and around the fringes of Christian music, a genre that doesn't exactly prize "the artist" often. I met him briefly when he was touring during his first round with Caedmon's Call (a band Webb announced he will be reuniting with soon) and it already seemed he was uneasy with the constraints of the business, frustrated by the limitations of playing in churches and the unofficially-enforced Jesus-per-minute standard. After a very weird time in Caedmon's (his songs seemed either pinned on at the last minute, or on a few albums, Webb didn't get a song on at all), he turned to a solo...

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Posted in: Dan Gibson,David Bazan,Derek Webb,Great Christian Music,Steve Taylor,Stockholm Syndrome,U2

A repurposed Parable

Sarah, allow me to build upon your words. Not long before I left Portland I found myself reading a small book in Powell�s dubbed Flight of the Hummingbird: A Parable for the Environment, a fun little book. After the parable it contained insights and advice from the Dalai Lama and Wangari Maathai, an environmental activist and leader from Kenya. I don�t remember all that the Dalai Lama and Wangari Maathai had to say (don�t get me wrong, it was charming and to the point), but I do remember, almost verbatim, the parable about the hummingbird and the environment. Parables are funny little creatures sometimes. They stick to you like ticks stick to socks after a walk in the woods. I got excited when I found the parable in video form. I, like Sarah, want to inspire change and not merely...

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Posted in: Earth,Eric Allen,Parable,recycling

repurposed

In the home goods section of most department stores, you can find generic plaques with inspirational words like, �Family�Love�Memories� written in fancy scroll. The other day I was walking through a Target in Portland when I saw one of these cream-colored plaques with black cursive writing. Except instead of �Family�Love�Memories,� it said, �Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.� Only in Portland does the word �Recycle� make it into artwork, I thought. The plaque makes for a tacky decoration, but I appreciate the thoughtfulness behind it, especially since I�ve been thinking recently about a Christian�s response to consumerism. Living in Portland where values...

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Posted in: consumerism,recycling,stewardship

Please Don't Make Us Sing This Song

Hurricane Katrina, four years later. Video by The Work of the People. The music is from Songs from the Voice, Volume...

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Posted in: Hurricane Katrina,John Pattison,Waterdeep

Evangelical Myths

A couple months ago I started watching the television show �Northern Exposure� on DVD. �Northern Exposure,� which ran for six seasons on CBS starting in 1990, is set in the fictional town of Cicely, Alaska. One of the most fascinating themes of this quirky, funny, and sometimes deeply moving series is the way Cicely�s white and Indian residents co-exist in community. One of my favorite episodes in Season Four depicts the Thanksgiving celebration, which in Cicely has taken on elements of El D�a de los Muertos. Indians ambush whites on the street, pelting them with tomatoes � and then they hug, friends. The holiday culminates with a parade down...

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Posted in: Evangelicals,John Pattison,Northern Exposure,On the Narrow Road

The Image of God in Ted...

I remember, about a decade ago, interviewing for a ministry position and getting into a doctrinal discussion about the image of God in man, particularly debating the question of what extent the image of God resides in fallen humans. "None" was the right answer, according to the team across the table from me, steeped as they were in a strong reformed theology and doctrine of depravity. "Humanity lost any capacity at all to display the character of God when Adam aligned with Satan."There it is. Simple. "Cut and dried" as they say. They quote some passages from Romans 3 that talk about none who do good, and how our righteousness is as filthy rags....

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Portland Wins yet another Beer Game

I�m not a beer snob by any stretch of the imagination. The word �connoisseur� would get me laughed out of most circles. And get this, I wasn�t even allowed to drink in college. I attended a Bible college in the Midwest (it's a great school). But I love beer. And I'm finished with school so occasionally I enjoy a good one (okay, �occasionally� was a bad word choice). I almost titled this �Portland Ruins yet another Mid-Western Beer Drinker.� And I very well could have because that�s what it did. The greatest city in the Northwest ruined me. And I'm here tell about it. It�s a tragic tale. It really is. I recently moved from Portland...

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Posted in: Beer,Eric Allen,Midwest,Portland

back to school

Last night the air in Portland was crisp and cool, and this morning it rained. As I was sloshing to work in the rain, I realized that summer is almost over, which means that school is just about to begin. Which means, of course, that back to school shopping is in full swing. I have never been a fan of back to school shopping. I have always thought of it as one of those contrived holidays meant to entice shoppers to flock to stores to spend their money on things they don�t need. Like shady salesmen who exhort you to celebrate President�s Day by buying a new king-sized mattress. It just hits me wrong.Most shopping hits me wrong these days, actually....

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Posted in: child labor,consumerism,shopping