Leaving Las Vegas

In the movie Leaving Las Vegas, Sera (a prostitute) falls in love with a guy named Ben, who is drinking himself to death.  She vows to accept him for who he is, tells him, “I know that you’ll never change” and gives him a silver flask for his birthday.  In the end, Ben dies of…

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Follow The Victim

Rene Girard is a brilliant French philosopher and anthropologist and professor (later in life at Stanford). He became fascinated with the fact that in modern times a “marginalized” person assumes a moral authority, that we root for underdogs, that we celebrate victims.  His fascination grew out of the fact that he could find nothing comparable…

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Radical Dependence

So I’ve been thinking that underlying most of our prayers is a desire to be independent of God, but God’s desire for our lives is one of radical dependence on Him. It’s true, right?  We pray for problem-free marriages, for God to take away that temptation, for a great paying stress-less job, for our kids…

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Shouldn’t Following Jesus Look Like…

Yesterday I mentioned that we’ve lived here for a year, and the question we always get is, “Why did you move to Vegas?!”  As in, “Why did you leave your great church in a great place to live, to move and start a new church in a difficult place to live?” Well, maybe I’m nuts,…

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Cry With Me

Awhile back my wife and I watched a (so) horrible movie (it made me want to put a bullet in my head) called Motherhood. (I actually wanted to go into my TV and kill Uma Thurmond. I’m not sure if I wanted to put her out of her misery, or myself.) One of the not…

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