June 16, 2008

Back in March, I wrote about a community report that took UC Irvine administrators to task for the anti-Israel atmosphere on campus:

An anti-Israel speaker praises suicide bombers. Posters display Nazi symbols, anti-Israel slogans and the Israeli flag with blood dripping from the Magen David. A Muslim student says “F—- Israel,” drops his drawers and shows his swastika tattoo to a non-Jewish student.

Yes, student-invited speakers, like Amir Abdel Malik Ali and Muhammad Al-Asi, often refer to Zionists as the “New Nazis” and “Zio-Nazis;” students have called for Israel to be wiped off the map; and the Muslim Student Union hosts an annual Palestinian awareness week that accuses Israel of apartheid and genocide and this year was dubbed “Never Again? The Palestinian Holocaust.”

There are many fair criticisms of Israel, but don’t expect to hear them at UC Irvine.

One recommendation of the independent task force—formed by the Hillel director and comprised of a former member of UCI’s medical school faculty, four rabbis and a Presbyterian pastor—was for Jewish high school seniors to boycott UC Irvine. This was broadly dismissed by the local Jewish establishment, whose leaders were baldly attacked in the report, and I would agree that the logic is counterintuitive. If the campus already is hostile to Jewish students, and, at least at times, it is, wouldn’t you want strongly committed Jews to enroll there and create a more vibrant Jewish student community?

Of course, politics and religion aren’t always logical.

Here Spencer Morgan of Poughskeepie, N.Y. explains why he didn’t commit to UC Irvine (aside from the fact that Vassar is one of the best liberal-arts colleges in the country):

Do you see Jesus in the window?

I’ve read countless stories about folks spotting Jesus in dental x-rays or the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich. When I was in San Bernardino, I reported on Jesus appearing in Raymond Limon’s window curtains, which led to a “tip” about Christ in the bark of a nearby tree. I’m skeptical, to say the least, when people see religious figures in everyday objects.

In the video after the jump, an 88-year-old Sacramento woman shares her Jesus fry. I sort of see a cross, but she says it is the body of Christ. About a minute in, after a long pause, the cameraman, sounding totally bored, says, “Well, that is exciting.”

My old college pastor, Rhett Smith, whose final day on the job was Friday the 13th, pointed me last week to an interesting discussion about how changes in the ways we interact socially are changing the nature of pastoring. (Rhett should know: He spoke last year at GodblogCon about using new media as a ministry tool.)

In this conversation with Collide magazine, Craig Detweiler, a screenwriter and Fuller professor, says traditional seminaries are now antiquated. They were simply built to put knowledge into the hands of pastors, but that’s not enough in the information age:

we’re now dealing with an age of too much information. And so, the job is to help people sort through all of the inputs to find out what matters amongst the avalanche of information. It’s about pointing people to reliable sources, pointing people to credible interpretations, inviting people into ongoing dialogue with their friends, neighbors, and coworkers around the pop cultural expressions. So, it’s moving the seminary education from pastor as most informed to pastor as most insightful because people no longer have an information problem. It’s not about lack of information. It’s about lack of discernment. Information is available to all. Wisdom and discernment remain rarer than ever.

This is clearly apparent when looking at the emergent church movement that has redefined “church” by its more biblical definition: “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.”