For some time I've been wanting to create a series of shirt designs based on G.K. Chesterton's books, using imagery from each book that in an urban/grunge style mashup.

After quite a while working at it, I finally got the inaugural one done: Orthodoxy

The buses (or omnibuses) are in reference to the opening, when Chesterton has an epiphany sparked by a passing omnibus with "Hanwell" written on it - location of the infamous asylum. From this, he concludes that "The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums." The question of what a man is to believe in, if not himself, is the thesis for the rest of the book.

"Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly." is an oft quoted Chesterton passage from Orthodoxy, and thus the image is framed by two angels almost drifting away. 

Charging towards you "the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect," from Chesterton's vivid description of the Church as a chariot pulled by wild horses. 

Finally, the word Orthodoxy itself is underlined by a sword, as several times Chesterton refers to orthodoxy coming like a sword. 

The entire design, no only the image but of the book, is summed up in the phrase "There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy." 

Get the shirt in the Eternal Revolution store.

It be Talk Like a Pirate Day. Don't be forgettin' to talk to ye Cap'n. Have ye been gettin' soft on the shores? Git out there an' Pray Like a Pirate! 

In the words of the cur Francis Drake:

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

We ask you to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push back the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.
This we ask in the name of our Captain,
Who is Jesus Christ.

An' fly the colors on yer gut with the Christian Pirate Shirt from Eternal Revolution.

A colleague of mine recently wrote me and told me he appreciated the good vs evil theme of my work.  Which got me thinking.

I never could get into the horror of H.P. Lovecraft.

The idea of a great and terrible ancient god, with a mighty tentacled head, rising out of the sea, worshiped by thousands of deranged cultists driven insane... It all strikes me as terribly amateurish. Not on Lovecraft's part, but on Cthulhu's, Yog-Sothoth's, and the rest of the elder gods. They completely lack subtlety.

How I wish evil were so apparent, so obvious, so grossly disfigured and so hauntingly wrong. But it isn't.

It presents itself as dazzlingly beautiful and familiar. Easy. Simple. Peaceful.

The history of Eternal Revolution - that is, this tiny effort of mine, is full of starts and stops, radical changes. I wish it wasn't, I wish it was more consistent. I've merely explained it in the past as personal issues, a common euphemism. 

 A graphic recently came up on facebook with a quote from Christian comedian Mark Lowry.

"Love the sinner, hate the sin? How about: Love the sinner, hate your own sin! I don't have time to hate your sin. There are too many of you! Hating my sin is a full-time job. How about you hate your sin, I'll hate my sin and let's just love each other!"
- Mark Lowry

Since it's hard to trust the truth of these things, I double checked and the quote is on Mark's site. 

It's certainly a nice, tolerant sentiment. But as I commented when I saw it on Facebook, it's not a biblical or charitable sentiment. 

(For the record, the only attribution I can find on "Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin" is Mahatma Gandhi. So no, the quote isn't found in the Bible.)

The war for our souls is indeed personal. The eternal revolution for the Kingdom of God is within each and every one of us. But at the same time, just as we should look to our own battle, we should not neglect our neighbors, our brothers and sisters. 

The quote is "hate THE sin." Mr. Lowry's error appears to be assigning ownership of the sin. "Your sin," "my sin." Sin is an act of will that cuts us off from God. To jump to an extreme, if one person murders someone, murder is the sin. It doesn't become "his sin." It's an act he committed. His act, but still the sin of murder. The expression "There's so many of you" belies this sentiment; there are many of us, but comparatively very few sins.

I don't believe Jesus spoke idly. When He he rendered judgement in the case of the adulterous woman (John 8:1-11), He dismissed her persecutors but still admonished her, "Go and sin no more." 

Jesus cleansed the temple, condemned the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, told his followers to judge by the fruits, and gave them counsel on how to address sins of others (Matthew 18:15+) . The whole parable of the good Samarian was a clarification of who your neighbor was (answer: even your worldly enemies) - a question raised by the second great commandment to "Love Your Neighbor as Yourself."

So if you hate the sin that you commit, don't neglect to loathe it because it is destroying the eternal life of someone else. 

And that's just from that nice fellow Jesus in the New Testament. 

When we go back to the Old Testement, God clearly instructs the prophets that they will be accountable for not guiding others. (Ezekiel 3:18, for instance).

It is certainly not charitable to tell people that God hates them (which is a lie, Jesus died for everyone, a sacrifice of love). But it is also uncharitable to tell them that you don't detest "their sin," simply because it affects their soul and not yours. 

So love your neighbor as yourself, for God loves them as well as you. That includes not only the LGBT community, but the serial killers, the rapists, the murderers, the thieves, the prostitutes, the politicians, the child molesters, the pornographers, the dictators, the socialists, the capitalists, and even other Christians.

Who ever said charity was easy or nice? No one in the Bible, that's for certain. Neither did those ancient warriors, the samurai.

In the Hagakure (quoted in The Way of the Christian Samurai) it is written:

 Years ago, I remember putting a lot of hours in a short period of time into getting my second book, Guerrilla Apologetics for Life Issues, ready for an upcoming conference. One book, or one product, is not enough for a company.

However, the book was a disappointment sales-wise. Despite the benefit of being a writer for LifeNews.com at the time and being "out there" in the movement, the general response to the book was summed up in the remark a woman made to me:

"Pro-life arguments? That's ok, I already know enough about that."

Enough.

I heard the word used again and again in regards to pro-life, or anti-abortion groups and movements. It was shocking to hear how many pro-life leaders, groups, and representatives would echo the sentiment, "We are doing enough," in order to wave off or discredit another pro-life group's initiative, work, or other effort.

As much as loathe the word "enough" being used in such a context (a great discussion should take place to explore just what level of action will be "enough" to combat a social evil like abortion, especially after 40 years), I eventually realized there was another word that was more troubling in the statement.

We are doing enough.

Who is we? This group, this church, people like me. Seems harmless enough until you realize that the call to love one another, to do for the least, and to ensure social justice was not a call to "join up" to a group, but an individual call to action. Jesus didn't issue recruitment calls to join an international nonprofit to raise awareness to social justice issues, He said "Sell all you have and give to the poor," "Whatever you do for the least of these, you do for Me." 

While I found this attitude prevalent in many pro-life groups I encountered, they by no means have a monopoly on the poisonous sentiment. Charitable foundations, outreach programs, and awareness campaigns reek of the attitude as well.

Don't use a group membership to shrug off your responsibility. What are you doing?

Although legendary and oft repeated quotes on the internet are sometimes inaccurate, and I have not had the time to verify this one, the statement itself is very true: 

God has not called me to be successful; He has called me to be faithful.

-Mother Teresa of Calcutta

As you carry Christ's message to the world, do not despair if no one hears you in the present. If you never seem to get ahead, if you barely keep your head above water - it doesn't matter in the end. We are called to be faithful to a divine will, something not of this world. Material success is measured in worldly terms, and is worth nothing in the end.

So remember what it is you are called to be working towards. Let all that does not matter truly slide.

 One of the more unusual influences on my ministry is Fight Club. And yet, it's a hard movie to recommend - "graphic" doesn't begin to describe it. The the kernel of the short story that came before the novel, that came before the movie, was rules. Author Chuck Palahniuk said in the afterword to the novel that the inspiration came from movies and books for women that defined social order and relationships, such as How to Make an American Quilt. He wanted to do the same for men, and the result became a cult classic. Fight Club could have been about any topic, according to Palahniuk; the crux of it all was the rules. For those unfamiliar with the rules, here they are as kinetic typography:

Every culture, every community, every tribe has rules. Christianity has more than just the Ten Commandments, when you stop and think about it. The first and second rule of fight club are interesting in that they are not followed and may not have intended to be followed. Or perhaps it was meant to mean share it, but don't just talk about it, for discussing the group itself is often disastrous (guys, you know what I mean). 

Back on topic: "Go forth and teach all nations" is a rule. Judge by the fruits. Fear not those that harm the body, but those that kill the soul. These are the rules of Christianity in the world. Monastic communities follow a "Rule of Life," a spiritual structure by which they grow through limitation. This doesn't just apply to guys, of course. As C.S. Lewis observed in The Screwtape Letters, we are animals; we are material as well as spiritual. Ritual and rules are for our beneifit, not God's. And as we tell ourselves we don't need to go to church, we don't need to kneel to pray, we don't need this or that ritual, we slip into laziness. Monastic, or even club rules, define the life we live with the community we live in. Our community is not of this world, and our rule of life should enforce the priority of the eternal over the passing world's trends, fads, and desires - even so-called necessities such as nest eggs and reliable transportation. 

Have you even considered the Rule of Life you live? Do you more closely follow the Rule of Life of your workplace, your school, or other worldly communities than one of an eternal revolution?