Rant of the Exiles

LAS VEGAS - CES - February 11th, 2016 - LifeHacker Church, a leader in the spiritual fitness market, today unveiled SinWin, a behavior tracking app, which together with the wearable technology in the SinWinSkin bracelet, make up a comprehensive sin management solution. Never before has behavior tracking been easier or more accurate. Instead of journals, logs, accountability partners, and the "leading" of the Holy Spirit, SinWin wearable technology allows you to monitor works of the flesh in real-time. When you fail to take a thought captive, SinWin will know and so will everyone else. SinWin technology incorporates sensors monitoring heart rate, speech, core temperature, perspiration level, ergonomic state, and electromagnetic radiation to derive your SinScale - a rating for your depravity. The technology is complex but the result is simple. And effective. Here's how it works: Each day your SinScale starts with a score of 10,000 points. Every sin de...

The full text of what she says: Inside every overweight woman is a woman she knows she can be. Many times you look in the mirror and you don't even recognize your own self, because you got lost - buried - in the weight that you carry. Nothing you've ever been through is wasted. So every time I tried and failed, every time I tried again, and every time I tried again, has brought me to this most powerful moment - to say:   "If not now, when?" I feel that way and I know millions of other people feel that way. Are you ready? Let's do this together. Let me first acknowledge that Oprah does not proclaim the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's the sina qua non of preaching the gospel. And yet there are more gospel redemptive elements of Oprah's ad than most thirty-forty minute sermons. In addition, Oprah is able to move our hearts in a way most sermons won't - and the fact she can do that in sixty seconds is incredible.   Note...

When should one aim to get married? How long should one know his/her significant other before tying the knot? I often hear these two questions and they have all kinds of problems because each person and relationship is different. Plus, other people have answered better than I will. Earlier is Better (sort of) I generally believe opposing the prevailing culture for gospel reasons. The culture of overachieving Asian Americans  emphasizes delaying marriage until career, education, and finances have been sorted. If you're in that category, I believe earlier age-wise is better. I'm biased towards the start-up rather than merger aspect of marriage. Marrying younger has all kinds of benefits - namely building a life together when each of you is the most malleable. A good marriage trumps career, education, and finances. However, for impulsive and short-sighted people, waiting is probably a good thing. What's most important is to become the...

A fake letter-writing service matching men with "angels" reveals how we value lies over truth and to never underestimate the power of human longing. As usual, I'm late getting on the podcast bandwagon but I have listened intermittently to NPR over the years so that must count for something. The stuff on Hidden Brain is high quality but the Lonely Hearts episode is Stephen Curry break-the-Matrix-type-of-good. *SPOILER ALERT* If you listen to podcasts, I suggest listening to it first before reading. If there's little to no chance of you tuning in, read on.  In Lonely Hearts, Shankar Vendatam narrates the story of Jesse who developed a romantic correspondence relationship spanning a decade with Pamala. Or who he thinks Pamala. Rather, it was a chain-smoking, middle-aged, snake oil salesman in Moline, Illinois named Don Lowry. And unbeknownst to Jesse, Lowry was sending copies of the exact same letters Jesse received to men all across the country. The...

I did the memorial service of a friend in our church recently. He was seventy-three years old and died after a two month battle with cancer. He was a faithful servant in our church but my feelings towards him would often alternate between fear and frustration. He had a gruff demeanor that could be quite brusque and unapproachable.  A couple weeks before he died, I visited him at a skilled nursing facility in Saratoga. I was late finding him and caught him during his physical therapy session. I walked in and he looked up at me. He didn't say "Hello" or "It's great to see Fred" or even crack a smile. Instead, he said sternly: "I'm not ready for you right now. You can come back later." In anticipation of this kind of response, I did some work on my laptop while I waited for him outside his room.   My frustration with him concerned his lack of vulnerability. He wasn't open about his weaknesses, wasn't expressive with his emot...

A friend in my church asked recently "What is our church policy regarding Halloween?" As this is my personal blog, I will speak for myself. My family enjoys Halloween. It doesn't mean other Christians should. In fact, we have the freedom in Christ to participate as we choose. We participate by dressing up. I attend Halloween costume parties. We take our kids trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. Why do we do that? I understand Halloween has roots in the past as a pagan holiday. I haven't researched its full history but I know there's some evil and occult stuff out there. Halloween also has roots as a Christian holiday - somehow the two traditions became mixed together over the years. I also recognize there are overtly disturbing elements of Halloween - demons, zombies, witches, ghouls, skeletons, and other gory, goth, and decidedly non-Jesus-y type things. I know the purpose of a haunted house is to scare people. One of our neighbors builds...

A friend emailed me that Weight Watchers stock, which I own, jumped 80% today because Oprah was announced as a board member. The news gave me a distinct feeling of pleasure. Like I just won something. Like I had just accomplished something worthwhile. Up to that point I wasn't feeling so great because Mondays are typically tough for me. Like many preachers, I felt like my sermon the day before could have been better. It's the same as the Monday morning quarterback syndrome - I review game decisions that I wish I could do over again.  As a preacher of the gospel, I tell people their happiness is not dependent on circumstances but rather God's unconditional love expressed through Jesus Christ but most of the time my emotional life does not respond that way. I'm happy when things go my way and I'm unhappy when they don't.  I know I'm not alone in having my personal satisfaction depend on my surroundings but it's disturbing when it violates wh...