You can actually watch full episodes of the show online (usually on Wednesdays) after they air on Tuesday nights at 9:30pm ET. Here’s a short clip from an episode to give you an idea of what the show is like:

Tomorrow I’ll be walking, in part, in memory of Joe Hallett, the first person I knew who had AIDS, the first person I knew who died with AIDS. Joe was a prominent “ex-gay” activist, founder of an “ex-gay” ministry in Minneapolis, and a brilliant writer. Joe allowed me to re-publish some of the articles he’d written for his ministry newsletters in my fledgling underground ‘zine, Kamikaze. I also published some of Joe’s beautiful poetry.

Joe’s account of living with AIDS in this particular piece, published in Kamikaze in April 1995, still grips me today. I republish it here to raise awareness of the ongoing suffering of those with AIDS, to honor Joe’s memory and the impact that he had on my life and so many other people’s lives, and to share Joe’s message of hope in the midst of pain:

Nine years ago, the doctors gave me two years to live. By the standards of the western world, I am of all men the most hopeless. I live on a limited income due to the disabling influence of AIDS. I am in almost constant pain. At times it seems as if my whole body is threatening to fall apart. My head, joints, and muscles ache. My stomach contorts at every meal, and diarrhea is a constant companion. I am harassed by a host of minor annoyances and complications. My skin flakes and peels. I am always getting a cold or just getting over one. I have fungal infections on my skin, under my skin, in my throat and mouth. Even mosquito bites can be a menace to me. I have had Pneumosystis Pheumonia, raging fevers and many other things. At this writing, I have been hospitalized eight times. Tomorrow I could have parasites in my brain, or CMV or any number of diseases. In a week or two, I could be dead.

No matter how my disease sets me off as different in our society, I’m not really different from anyone else born into this world. The moment we are born we begin walking the road toward death. We cannot avoid it. All the hairpin angles and turns we make, attempting to elude death, always lead us back to its door.

Death, though often discussed in the media, is the one thing we dare not touch or stare at too boldly. The old in our society we put away, out of sight, out of mind. Our nursing homes are full of those who have been abandoned. The disabled too, we push to the periphery of our lives and society. We whisper about AIDS in the abstract and occasionally visit a quilt, but does this change the way we live?

Hope, in such an age, becomes a kind of denial. We get our tummies and fannies tucked. If we can afford it, we lift from our faces any traces of age. In North America alone, billions of dollars are spent every year to disguise the evidence of our mortality. As a society, we learn to worship the young, the beautiful, the fit.

But it is of no avail. At every turn, we suffer loss, and all of it tastes of death. It confronts us daily in a thousand little ways. Our hair falls out; our bodies thicken, and lose their hardness; jobs are lost; relationships fall apart; children grow and leave; houses burn; pets die. Again and again, death hammers into our lives, leaving each of us more and more desolate.

I have lost thirteen friends to AIDS. With each death, I taste my own. I cannot escape it; I can no longer deny it. I can only face it. Despite this final obstacle yawning chasm-like on the road up ahead, I am not completely helpless. I have acquired a whole arsenal of weapons as I have walked this path. I have faith, hope, love, and a knowledge of who God is that will not desert me. My suffering has meaning because my life has value. I am not some cosmic orphan in the universal scheme of things. I have a name, a place, and a Father who loves me so much that He suffered His Son to die rather than live without me (John 3:16-18, NIV).

Death has lost its sting. It is only a door and not the end.

So, the question before each of us is not a matter of when will death claim us, but how do we live our lives until that moment? What gives your life value? What gives your pain meaning? From where does your hope come?

Please share this message with others, and please consider supporting the work of RAIN by donating to the TwitterToesTweetFeet Team that I’ll be a part of in tomorrow’s AIDS Walk. Also, watch for updates from the walk on Twitter by following #AIDSWalkCLT.

More From Joe: Download this column written by Joe Hallett, originally published in the July/August 1995 issue of Kamikaze Magazine: “What do you see when you picture God? The image painted in our mind says much more about us, personally, than it does about God.”

(HT: Jonathan Brink)

I’ve been thinking about reading this, so now I can read it right here on my own website. Nifty!

Then in less than one week (Monday, August 4), Brooke and Jason Evans come through town on their own cross-country roadtrip, conducting research for a new book on Christian communities and the food they eat. They’ll be our culinary guides for the “Justice Kitchen” dinner party and cooking class at our home in Gastonia (just west of Charlotte). Here are a couple of pictures from previous Justice Kitchens on this tour:

There are other events coming up in the next few weeks, including a visit to the Carolinas by Paul Young, author of the best-selling novel The Shack. I haven’t read the book (yet), but I’ve read a number of different reviews—and I think I’ll probably enjoy the book.

I’m really looking forward to seeing lots of people tonight at the “Church Basement Roadshow.” I’ll try to post a re-cap with some photos later this week. Until then, I appreciate your prayers that God would use these events to bear good fruit for his kingdom here in the Charlotte area.

WHITEBULLRUNNING.COM – Podcast #2 from Stephen Ernst on Vimeo.

Reminds me how important the work of Not For Sale is, and I’m grateful for my friends (including the late Carol Wilson) who are involved in the Carolina Clapham Circle group.

Pastor Jonathan Martin shared a wonderful introduction to Hauerwas, which you can read on Jonathan’s blog. Some of Hauerwas’ comments were to not-so-well received (as you can imagine), so the church delayed posting the audio so they could edit out a couple of the profanities and so that they could post it simultaneously with Jonathan’s “Pastoral Response” to the issues raised in the conversation with Hauerwas.

I haven’t listened to Jonathan’s response yet, but I plan to—and I encourage everyone who listens to hear Hauerwas would also listen to Jonathan’s follow-up as he is a brilliant thinker and dynamic speaker in his own right. (“Pastoral Response” audio is here, Jonathan’s blog post on it is here.)

So back to July 29 … Hauerwas said many really challenging and provocative things, but the part of the conversation I was most intrigued by was his response to the “softball” question that Jonathan said was the #1 question submitted by people in the church, which was essentially: “How should we then vote?”

This is how Hauerwas responded (my transcription of the audio, which starts at around an hour and three minutes in, with my emphasis added):

“First of all, you’ve got to remember that voting is not an end in itself. First of all, if you want to know what coercion looks like, it’s called a democratic election. It’s where 51% get to dominate 49%. … [long story here, which I'm editing out for brevity's sake] … Now that’s democracy: Namely, you create the necessity of conversation through which people get to express their differences in a way you simply have to learn to wait. So elections have very little to do with democracy. They’re just a means to try to help you have debates you need to have that you otherwise would not have. …

“As a person that’s committed to Christian non-violence, which means that you basically have an anarchist view of the world, I try to obey all every law I can to show good faith with my citizen brother and sister who are not of my persuasion. So, I have very strong views about abortion. … I don’t mean to say I want Roe versus Wade overturned. What I want, for example, is for some American politician to come along and say, ‘We’re going to give every child that’s born in this society a living wage.’ I mean, let’s start on the positive end …

“I do find it hard to vote, but I’m a yellow dog Democrat from Texas. So that is, you know, ‘Democrats from Texas would rather vote for a yellow dog than a Republican.’ So I tend to vote, but I try not to take it too seriously. I regard it basically as the Roman circus where you’re given entertainment to stop the American people from concentrating on … what really should be at the heart of the political process. Namely, such as, why is it that no one is angry at the inequality of income in this country? I mean, the inequality of income is unbelievable. Unbelievable. Why isn’t that ever an issue of politics? Because you don’t live in a democracy. You live in a plutocracy. Money rules.

“I want to be as politically involved as I can, but I try not to take it too seriously. I’m much more interested in how I can be involved in people getting decent wages that clean the buildings at Duke University than I am about what happens in Washington, D.C. Though I understand, Washington, D.C., has finally something to do with people getting decent wages who clean the building at Duke University. So those kinds of connections you have to make. …

“I’ll probably vote for Obama, if you want to know. Not that it [matters] … I mean, it’s quite an extraordinary symbolic vote, and I care about it because I’m a white Southerner. I understand race. … But the great problem there is going to be the over-expectations that are associated if he wins. … Racism aint gonna go away. So how to negotiate those kinds of matters, is, I take it, a constant issue of discernment that needs to be discussed as the Church because one of the things that the Church rarely does is talk about politics, because again that’s made private.

“I mean, how would you feel if Jonathan said, ‘I’m going to tell you how to vote’? I’d like him to have that authority because then you would really have to worry about him, wouldn’t you? And that’d be a very good thing for you to hold him accountable in that way.

“I’m told I’m supposed to be a ‘sectarian fideistic tribalist,’ is the description of me, asking Christians to withdraw from the world. I wouldn’t mind withdrawing, but hell, we’re surrounded. There’s nowhere to go. The question is how to just keep going through, and you’re going to take some losses. So we have to be wilely as serpents on these matters. I’m not asking you to withdraw from politics. I’m just asking you to be there as a Christian.

“There’s nothing more important in American politics than being able to hold people to truthfulness, and the reason that American politicians are afraid of telling us the truth is because the American people don’t want to know it. Do we want to know that we’re the richest people in the world, raping the rest of the world [so] that we can remain rich? Do we want to know that Iraqi war really is about cheap oil? Do you really want to know that?

“Do you really want to be told that, ‘Look, America is a racist country, and the terms keep getting changed to hide that from ourselves?’ Let an American politician run saying, ‘I’m ready to tell you the truth. Are you ready to vote for me?’ Let the church of God be that people that are ready to hold people to the truth, and then you will be the most political people in the world. Do that.”

That was the end of the conversation, but there was much more at the beginning about the Church and Hauerwas’ views on the book of Matthew, non-violence, etc. Listen to the whole conversation and then go listen to Jonathan’s pastoral response.

What do you think of Hauerwas’ answer to the voting question? Are you surprised? Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Tags: hauerwas, obama, voting, election, renovatus, president,

The Bible in a minor key laments this troubled world, like the Blues. Prophets and psalmists call us to raise our heads for help that comes from the Lord, like the old negro spirituals. To mourn everyday injustice while remaining anchored in faith, hope, and love is to be a blues people. This seminar explores through the blues what it means to serve Christ in an often lamentable world.

Anthony just called me—from inside a porta-potty!—to give me an update. Ahhh, I have fond memories of Cornerstone porta-potties … Let me digress for a moment and share some of my Cornerstone Festival memories …

I first went to Cornerstone Festival in 1991. I won two free passes to the festival that year through a Christian radio station that had a “Christian rock” program on Saturday afternoons. The station barely came in on my FM radio, it was so fuzzy, but I listened anyway because I loved the music! So my older brother (who had a driver’s license) got one ticket, I got the other ticket, and my friend Nathan Hieb came along for the trip with us.

I was really into hard music back in those days, so I spent most of my time around the heavy metal and punk bands. I did my first stage dive at the Scaterd Few concert, and I was re-born! I remember seeing The Crucified, as well, that night. Mind-blowing hardcore stuff.

LSU (seen above in their 1993 main stage performance) did a mesmerizing impromptu show at the beach that year. One Bad Pig recorded a live concert video, which you can see me in during one song because I was right up at the front of the stage jumping up and down and banging my head like crazy. I also remember loving The Violet Burning and Crashdog.

In 1992, I had started to “mellow out” and/or my musical tastes had begun to mature. During the previous year, I’d purchased a Mark Heard CD called Second Hand from the clearance bin at the local Christian bookstore, and it opened my mind to the possibility of there being quality artistic, singer-songwriter, folk/rock music in the Christian genre. I saw Mark Heard perform at Cornerstone in 1992. Unbeknown to me, Heard had a heart attack on stage and had to be rushed to the hospital after the show. A few months later I read about his death in a Christian music magazine.

Cornerstone 1992 was also the year I practically banged my head off at The Throes concert and discovered (and fell in love) with the Vigilantes of Love and the Prayer Chain (and immediately bought both bands’ CDs), among other crazy things.

I went back to Cornerstone year after year, even running a booth at the Festival one year to try and promote my underground ‘zine turned wannabe national Christian arts and culture publication, called Kamikaze Magazine. The last time I was at Cornerstone was 2000, when I was working for Billy Graham and I convinced them it would be a good place for me to get interviews with Christians bands for use on the Web (which it was, but it was also just fun).

Anyway, despite all my Cornerstone experience, I really had a hard time describing it to Anthony before he went. You have to be there to truly understand. And I’m glad to hear that he’s having fun and getting a good number of people attending his seminars.

Anthony tells me he spent a good bit of time today hanging out with Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw, which can only mean good things (for them and for him). He said he’s also had good conversations with Miroslav Volf, William Cavanaugh, Crystal Downing, and Karen Sloan (among others). He’s hoping to post his own recap/report soon. I hope he gets a chance to reflect on this experience and unpack what it’s been like. I sure wish I could’ve been there with him to experience another Cornerstone Festival! Maybe next year …

“… on June 27 the Vice President of Kuwait’s national oil company gave a talk to a group of energy industry who’s whos. He claims: ‘By 2010, the production of the fuel that has driven the world’s economy will start to rapidly decline. This will conflict with the steadily increasing demand for oil. The collision of these two trends will lead to shortages and increased prices … Due to unequal distribution through the world of oil and gas supply and consumption, [the upcoming] transition will result in significant shifts in global power and wealth.’”

Analyzing this report, John La Grou writes, “We will all be simplifying our lives due to new economic realties. This is a very healthy transition in many respects. But with simplification comes lower economic expectations. Economists will call this ‘recession’ or perhaps ‘stagflation’ or worse—jobs will be lost, families will be dislocated, and lives will be changed. Life in the peak oil era will be not be business as usual.”

Justin Long at Momentum Magazine writes, “Kevin Kelleher (a blogger focused on alternative fuels) analyzes a report written by Jeff Rubin (CIBC World Markets) outlining a grim possibility of $7/gallon gas by 2010 that will last until 2020. Once again, we are well advised to begin preparing for a potential downturn in giving, exacerbating the already tight financial situation due to the declining U.S. dollar.”

Hopefully by 2010, I’ll be driving one of these (estimated to get 282 MPG! OMG!):

Happy Fossil Fuel Independence Day!

To his credit, McCain had his own private meeting with some evangelical B-listers. (I mean, just because I’ve never heard of them doesn’t mean they’re not, like, important, to someone.)

Now, in the wake of McCain’s one-on-one meeting with Billy, Franklin, and Ricky Skaggs (hey, who invited him?!), McCain has garnered this rousing “endorsement” from the younger Graham: “I was impressed by his personal faith and his moral clarity on important social issues facing America today.” Folks, that’s code for: “Yes, he’s a Christian, and he’s pro-life and anti-gay.”

But here’s the real beauty of McCain’s meeting today (and I applaud him for this brilliant campaign strategery) : He looks downright young sitting next to the very old and very age-marked elder Graham! Just take a look:

I predict a lot more McCain appearances on The Larry King Show, and perhaps some campaign appearances with celebrity supporters like Mickey Rooney, Phyllis Diller, and Abe Vigoda!