Which of the following, on average, would you guess is the second highest paid position in football (behind the QB)?

a) Wide receiver
b) Left tackle
c) Running back
d) Middle linebacker

The answer is (b): the second highest paid position in the NFL is the left tackle. Why?

1. Because of Bill Walsh. You could say, more generally, the West Coast Offense. But there were two versions of the West Coast Offense: one went deep and the other (Walsh’s version) went wide. Spread out the field. Send four or five receivers out for shorter passes, raising your completion percentage and extending the run after the catch. Sending more people out, however, left the quarterback more vulnerable.

2. Because of rule changes in 1978. No longer could a cornerback “bump-and-run” with a receiver all the way down the field. Now he’s limited to five yards. And offensive linemen, who formerly were forced to block looking like clothes hangers, were suddenly allowed to use their hands.

3. Because of Lawrence Taylor. If you still wince when you hear the name “Joe Theismann,” then you’re probably a football fan. Taylor was a QB-destroying machine. The new profile for the blind side pass rusher became that athlete who is large, fast, and violent. In other words, someone not easily blocked by a running back.

Michael Lewis’s The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game tells the story of why the left tackle, the person who guards the blind side of the quarterback from the Lawrence Taylors of the world, has become such a valuable position.

The new profile for an NFL left tackle is what Lewis says the scouts call “a freak of nature.” He’s tall (6’4″+), big (320+), quick, and has a wide butt, long arms and big hands. Think Orlando Pace or Jonathan Ogden.

Like Michael Oher, now a left tackle for Ole Miss. Much of this excellent book tells his story.

It’s the story of Memphis — a city with an invisible Berlin Wall between white and black. Lewis talks about the Christian academies that sprang up quickly with forced integration so wealthy white children wouldn’t have to go to school with black children. He talks about the pilgrimage east — as far away from the problems of West Memphis as possible.

But this story is specifically told through one young man: Michael Oher. He was a child who seemed to have no hope.

He was one of ten children of a crack cocaine-addicted mother. At times they had no shelter. When asked what he remembers about his first years of life, Michael says: “Going for days having to drink water to get full. Going to other people’s houses and asking for something to eat. Sleeping outside. The mosquitoes.”

For a few years they lived in Hurt Village — a community of about 1000 with no — count them, ZERO — two-parent families. Seventy-five percent of the adults there had some mental illness. Drug lords waited with crack in hand at the first of the month when welfare checks arrived in the mail.

By the time he was 15, Michael Oher hadn’t been to school much. He’d been tested, and his IQ came out to be 80.

But all that changed. I’ll leave the details for you to enjoy the book. But the short story is this: he fell victim to the love and nurture of one wealthy, white family in East Memphis. Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy (a former basketball player and a former cheerleader at Ole Miss) welcomed him into their family. He suddenly had a family, including a sister his age and a younger brother. He had a school to attend — Briarcrest Christian School. He had clothes and food. His IQ rose from 80 to 110.

Whether you’re a football fan or not, you’ll love the chapters on the recruiting of Michael Oher. Every college coach in the country began salivating when he saw tapes of Oher treating large opponents as if they weren’t there. In one game Briarcrest played, every offensive play consisted of giving the ball to the running back and telling him to stay behind Oher’s butt until he heard a whistle. They destroyed their opponent on that one play.

This is a hard book because of the despair. You realize that most people in the Hurt Villages of our inner cities don’t have a Tuohy family to help them.

But it’s also an inspiring read because this one family — this one white, wealthy, Evangelical family — brought a monstrous kid into their lives before anyone knew he had athletic super-talent. He was lost, and Leigh Anne Tuohy was going to care for him.

This morning we hit the pavement running and I wasn’t sure if my old forty-five and a half year-old body was up for the day. I was sitting there thinking about how I really needed to take better care of myself and put ointment on my scaly elbows. With that thought still on my mind I looked up to see the Phnom Penh street-cleaning women hard at work—picking up the garbage with their bare hands. The Cambodian people work so hard here. There is an unlawful energy about Cambodia that I don’t remember absorbing before this trip. Everyone seems to be recklessly driving and the sex industry is so in our face.

We went to meet with Don at Agape. He runs a shelter for girls rescued from prostitution. He is really cool and was so helpful to Aimee with facts and numbers. He has been working here for two years and has several Vietnamese girls in his shelter. He is working in a Vietnamese area and said that ten-year-old little girls “expect” to be sold when they turn ten. Chinese and South Korean men are paying more for the lighter skinned girls–so the Vietnamese girls are in demand.

He told us the story of a little three-year-old who had to be examined by a pediatrician-friend who was staying with him…you get the point–there was nothing pretty about our conversation with Don this morning. It was confirmation that TAL needs to become more involved with working in Cambodia. I am going to talk to Marie tomorrow and run some ideas by her. I don’t know what all this means but I know God is laying foundation on this trip.

We went to one of the brothels that had been shut down about two years ago. It is a vacant building that looks like a storefront from the outside. But behind closed doors there were chambers that were six by six feet. There were about 14 little rooms down a long hallway. Each room had a hand-painted number on the outside of the door. Inside was a wooden slat bed and nothing else. The rooms were personally decorated with magazine pages glued to the wall, hand-drawn crosses of markers and poems. The poem tells of how men come and tell these girls they are beautiful but they know they are called “dirty girls”. One poem told of how she was so unhappy (I will try to get all the words of this poem from Don). It is the saddest thing. In fact, Aimee and I said that the prison cells at least had ventilation and these girls were truly prisoners and sex slaves of the worst kind. I think I will have nightmares of those little rooms.

Upstairs there was a room painted bright pink where the girls had to go shoot up with heroin and then be filmed for sex videos. I sat at the doorway of this room and looked at the pink paint and thought, how sad, every little girl should have a pink bedroom but not a pink sex room where she is to perform the cruelest of sex acts with men.

It is really beyond and out of control. There are white single men just combing the streets here along the river. I think Aimee and I truly can only take one more day and staying here on the river. Thank goodness we are leaving because Aimee does not hide the disgust on her face very well. I laughed at her this morning when she shot a pissed-off look to a guy flirting with the waitress. It is just dripping with disgust here.

I came home this afternoon and had to lay down because I felt the trip was catching up with me. I thought about those little rooms before I napped and it was the first thing I thought of when I woke up.

Well, I have to go. My workhorse of a writer said we must pound some things out this afternoon. She is really coming up with some neat ideas and ways of introducing each chapter. I am getting very excited about the book!

In spite of being tired and missing my family so much, I have to realize that God is not finished with me yet. I have one more day to see what all He needs to show me. Hearing the stories about little Vietnamese and Cambodian girls being tortured and robbed of their innocence is what I need to remember. I must find and keep a fighting spirit so that I might be able to do something about it. I can see Tay’s little face in so many of these stories. I see MaiLia walking the streets selling books. I see young women like KeSey dripping in sexual body language. This is not acceptable that these men are coming here and these babies are being held prisoner.

Wait until you see the pictures of this place. It is the glue to all the stories I have heard through the years.

I’d like to recommend as a follow-up to the discussion Greg Boyd’s The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church.

Here are a few words where he explains his position:

“My thesis . . . is this: I believe a significant segment of American evangelicalism is guilty of nationalistic and political idolatry. To a frightful degree, I think, evangelicals fuse the kingdom of God with a preferred version of the kingdom of the world (whether it’s our national interests, a particular form of government, a particular political program, or so on). Rather than focusing our understanding of God’s kingdom on the person of Jesus — who, incidentally, never allowed himself to get pulled into the political disputes of his day — I believe many of us American evangelicals have allowed our understanding of the kingdom of God to be polluted with political ideals, agendas, and issues.

“I do not argue that those political positions are either wrong or right. Nor do I argue that Christians shouldn’t be involved in politics. While people whose faith has been politicized may well interpret me along such lines, I assure you that this is not what I’m saying. The issue is far more fundamental than how we should vote or participate in government. Rather, I hope to challenge the assumption that finding the right political path has anything to do with advancing the kingdom of God.”

I’d still like to also recommend Balmer’s book.

Then he saw a member of our church who is mentally challenged. She walked over to the man who was screaming, hugged him hard, and then said, “God loves you so much. But it hurts his feelings when you talk about him like that.”

“Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” (1 Peter 3:15)

“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” (Colossians 4:6)

Next week I will be returning to Africa and will be able to see the Magnificent Seven first hand! It’s hard to comprehend the changes that must be transpiring within the souls of these precious children who were once living in hopeless bondage but are now experiencing freedom.

During the past few weeks I’ve felt as if I am living in someone else’s body. This someone else leads a very exciting, busy life! I’ve ridden on the wings of various emotions leaving me to feel as if I need motion-sickness medication!

In case you ever wonder–when one is featured in a New York Times article and then is a guest on the Oprah Show–life changes. It was all a divine strategy carefully mapped out by a divine being! A human could not have arranged this miraculous chain of events where orphans from around the world are benefiting from a Missouri mom’s journey. Only God can do a work such as this!

I find myself giggling out loud as I recall the past six years of my groveling and begging for money to help poverty-stricken, disease-ridden widows and orphans in third-world countries. I had known I was to be a voice to cry out for children whose cries were not being heard…yet the frustration that comes when most people refuse to listen is too painful to describe. I didn’t understand why God would so clearly give me channels to help those who were going to die if someone didn’t step in if he wasn’t going to guide and direct me to people who were compassionate, willing and generous! Most richly-blessed Americans choose NOT to look away from their blessings long enough to focus on the ugliness of reality.

I see that my choosing to remain persistent in spite of endless irritations and constant disappointment has led me to where I stand today. It’s not me–I am operating in “simple-obedience.” I have committed to remain faithful and open to be used as an instrument — the feet, hands and voice. God must have been waiting for some reason and now must be the time. A gentle, refreshing shower of blessings from people whom I didn’t even know existed has been washing over me over the past few weeks. I have discovered kindred souls who are filled with compassion and kindness and who are willing to do their fair-share to save the world (one child at a time!).

I will be traveling to Africa with Amee Molloy. Amy is a writer who has been spending much of her life “inside my head” here lately. I carefully guide her along to visit both heartaches and rejoicings as she paints portions of my life into book form. We will visit the lake where Mark and the others were rescued from the darkness of slavery. I expect to feel excruciating pain for those who have not yet been liberated. Yet, I will take hold of the hope that their day of liberation will come. Experiencing the “Mark-Miracle” has confirmed what I had believed all along: for each suffering child there is a person out there who (if that person would only step out in faith) can be delivered out of bondage!

I am sure you will be reading details of my Ghana-journey while we are there as I have someone who will keep this blog updated for me.

Until then…

Quite often the absence of immediate success
is the mark of a genuine call.
~Bruce Larson~

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Thanks to the diligent work of Keith Brenton, MP3 downloads of Zoe music are now available on our website.

“Save the Cheerleader, save the world.”

A month ago I wouldn’t have known. But two weeks on your back while your post-surgery knee is resting and rehabbing offers lots of time for catching up on new television shows. It was fun having plenty of time to read — but I can’t read all day long.

So I decided to check out “Heroes” to find out what the buzz is about. And that’s where you find out the key to stopping a massive, destructive explosion: save the cheerleader, save the world.

The premise is that there are people scattered all over who appear to be average, normal folks: a cheerleader in Odessa, a painter in NYC, a cop from LA, a programmer from Tokyo, etc. But they are much, much more than normal. And somehow their lives are coming together to save the world.

I liked the connection to the Jesus story. Scattered all over the world are heroes — seemingly ordinary people who are joining God in putting the world right. They appear to be just hair dressers, teachers, coaches, stay-at-home parents, pharmaceutical reps, doctors, truck drivers, etc. But they are much more. They are people whom God has blessed so that they can be a blessing to others.

Save the hair dresser; save the world. (Oprah yesterday)
Save the administrative assistant; save the world.
Save the mother of three small kids; save the world.
Save the retired great grandpa; save the world.
Save the high school student; save the world.
Save the middle school coach; save the world.
Save the computer technician; save the world.
Save the insurance salesman; save the world.
Save the nurse; save the world.
Save the cheerleader; save the world.
Save the unemployed person; save the world.
Save the . . . .

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Larry James recently had these stats about immigration in Texas on his blog:

Consider these facts about immigration:

Of 31 million total immigrants, 12 million are undocumented with 1.4 to 1.6 million in Texas (5% of the state’s population)

Parkland Health and Hospital System, the public hospital in Dallas County, wrote off $7.6 million in unpaid medical bills from patients residing in adjoining Collin County which has no public hospital

(D Magazine, “Mexican Invasion,” by Rod Davis, February 2007, pages 42ff)

What will the church’s response be? Try to turn our world into a gated community where others are accused and rejected? Or seek to welcome and love?

Want to read more? You can find it here. This excellent piece by Christopher Wright would be an excellent discussion starter for any Bible class, small group, or leaders’ retreat. (Thanks, Jim, for telling me about it!)

Here’s another paragraph to whet your appetite:

“So another piece of unlearning we must do is breaking the habit of using the term mission field to refer to everywhere else in the world except our home country in the West. The language of home and mission field is still used by many churches and agencies, but it fundamentally misrepresents reality. Not only does it perpetuate a patronizing view of the rest of the world as always being on the receiving end of our missionary largesse, but it also fails to recognize the maturity of churches in many other lands.”

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And PLEASE, when you get a chance, read this book review of John Stackhouse’s new Finally Feminist: A Pragmatic Christian Understanding of Gender — a review written by Susan Wise Bauer.

Here, again, is just a taste:

Stackhouse finds, in the church’s changing attitude toward slavery, a proper model for the church’s changing attitude toward women. He points out that while women and homosexuals are never linked in the restrictive passages of the New Testament, women and slaves are. Women and slaves in the early church, freed in Christ, were nevertheless encouraged to observe cultural norms to keep the gospel from disrepute.

Stackhouse argues that the abolition of slavery provides us with a model for the Holy Spirit’s slow, ongoing work in doing away with a sinful, oppressive cultural norm—a change that doesn’t at all undercut the authority of Scripture. Many evangelicals point to thousands of years of patriarchy as proof that patriarchy is an essential part of God’s creation. Yet slavery, which we have now rejected, was as universal as patriarchy, and the Christian church has rightfully rejected it.

Well said!

a) Wide receiver
b) Left tackle
c) Running back
d) Middle linebacker

The answer is (b): the second highest paid position in the NFL is the left tackle. Why?

1. Because of Bill Walsh. You could say, more generally, the West Coast Offense. But there were two versions of the West Coast Offense: one went deep and the other (Walsh’s version) went wide. Spread out the field. Send four or five receivers out for shorter passes, raising your completion percentage and extending the run after the catch. Sending more people out, however, left the quarterback more vulnerable.

2. Because of rule changes in 1978. No longer could a cornerback “bump-and-run” with a receiver all the way down the field. Now he’s limited to five yards. And offensive linemen, who formerly were forced to block looking like clothes hangers, were suddenly allowed to use their hands.

3. Because of Lawrence Taylor. If you still wince when you hear the name “Joe Theismann,” then you’re probably a football fan. Taylor was a QB-destroying machine. The new profile for the blind side pass rusher became that athlete who is large, fast, and violent. In other words, someone not easily blocked by a running back.

Michael Lewis’s The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game tells the story of why the left tackle, the person who guards the blind side of the quarterback from the Lawrence Taylors of the world, has become such a valuable position.

The new profile for an NFL left tackle is what Lewis says the scouts call “a freak of nature.” He’s tall (6’4″), big (320+), quick, and has a wide butt, long arms and big hands. Think Orlando Pace or Jonathan Ogden.

Like Michael Oher, now a left tackle for Ole Miss. Much of this excellent book tells his story.

It’s the story of Memphis — a city with an invisible Berlin Wall between white and black. Lewis talks about the Christian academies that sprang up quickly with forced integration so wealthy white children wouldn’t have to go to school with black children. He talks about the pilgrimage east — as far away from the problems of West Memphis as possible.

But this story is specifically told through one young man: Michael Oher. He was a child who seemed to have no hope.

He was one of ten children of a crack cocaine-addicted mother. At times they had no shelter. When asked what he remembers about his first years of life, Michael says: “Going for days having to drink water to get full. Going to other people’s houses and asking for something to eat. Sleeping outside. The mosquitoes.”

For a few years they lived in Hurt Village — a community of about 1000 with no — count them, ZERO — two-parent families. Seventy-five percent of the adults there had some mental illness. Drug lords waited with crack in hand at the first of the month when welfare checks arrived in the mail.

By the time he was 15, Michael Oher hadn’t been to school much. He’d been tested, and his IQ came out to be 80.

But all that changed. I’ll leave the details for you to enjoy the book. But the short story is this: he fell victim to the love and nurture of one wealthy, white family in East Memphis. Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy (a former basketball player and a former cheerleader at Ole Miss) welcomed him into their family. He suddenly had a family, including a sister his age and a younger brother. He had a school to attend — Briarcrest Christian School. He had clothes and food. His IQ rose from 80 to 110.

Whether you’re a football fan or not, you’ll love the chapters on the recruiting of Michael Oher. Every college coach in the country began salivating when he saw tapes of Oher treating large opponents as if they weren’t there. In one game Briarcrest played, every offensive play consisted of giving the ball to the running back and telling him to stay behind Oher’s butt until he heard a whistle. They destroyed their opponent on that one play.

This is a hard book because of the despair. You realize that most people in the Hurt Villages of our inner cities don’t have a Tuohy family to help them.

But it’s also an inspiring read because this one family — this one white, wealthy, Evangelical family — brought a monstrous kid into their lives before anyone knew he had athletic super-talent. He was lost, and Leigh Anne Tuohy was going to care for him.

“For generations the church has been polarized between those who see the main task being the saving of souls for heaven and the nurturing of those souls through the valley of this dark world, on the one hand, and on the other hand those who see the task of improving the lot of human beings and the world, rescuing the poor from their misery.

“The longer that I’ve gone on as a New Testament scholar and wrestled with what the early Christians were actually talking about, the more it’s been borne in on me that that distinction is one that we modern Westerners bring to the text rather than finding in the text. Because the great emphasis in the New Testament is that the gospel is not how to escape the world; the gospel is that the crucified and risen Jesus is the Lord of the world. And that his death and Resurrection transform the world, and that transformation can happen to you. You, in turn, can be part of the transforming work. That draws together what we traditionally called evangelism, bringing people to the point where they come to know God in Christ for themselves, with working for God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. That has always been at the heart of the Lord’s Prayer, and how we’ve managed for years to say the Lord’s Prayer without realizing that Jesus really meant it is very curious.

(from an interview in Christianity Today, 1/07)

First, a boy at our church just had his twelfth birthday. He told his family that he wanted every — EVERY — present given to him to be donated to Highland’s Christmas Store ministry. So every present that was brought to his party was placed in a larger box — a box that was then brought to the church to be part of this ministry.

I don’t remember doing that when I was twelve.

Second, a mentally handicapped woman at our church — to be honest, she’s mentally handicapped but spiritually advanced! — handed a couple envelopes with money to one of our ministers, telling her that they were for the Christmas Store to help those who are poor. “They’re just pennies,” she said. “That’s all I have right now. But I think God does a good job of using pennies.”

I’m her preacher. And she’s teaching me about discipleship.

Third, I watched in amazement again as about 500 of our neighbors came for the Christmas Blessing. The children of our neighborhood did such a wonderful job in the Christmas pageant. Then everyone gathered in the gym for a meal. Here are a couple pictures of the pageant:

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Rarely do I think to check the “recent visitors map” at stat counter. But I just did that and saw that of the last 25 visitors, there was one from Brazil, one from Tanzania, two from Europe, and two from SE Asia. So welcome to those of you who are far, far from Abilene. May God fill you with his joy and his presence!

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Note to HCC members:

We can still use volunteers to wrap and to greet for the Christmas Store hours this Thursday (3:00 – 7:00), Friday (1:00 – 7:00), and Saturday (10:00 – 2:00). This will take place at Christian Ministries of Abilene (our downtown outreach center on Walnut). Call Joe Almanza at Highland if you can help.

But after eleven years in a large Dallas law firm and after making partner, A. Scott Fenney had no such plans. His future was money. Green, it turns out, is The Color of Law.

Fenney, a former star running back at SMU who married Miss SMU, has been on the fast track with a Dallas firm. But after he gives a rousing speech to colleagues about the nobility of law, invoking the memories of his mother reading to him about Atticus Finch (a speech which he later admits he didn’t believe), a federal judge appoints him to represent a black prostitute from East Dallas who is being charged with murder.

And, we learn, the man she supposedly murdered after he picked her up on Harry Hines Boulevard is the son of a powerful, wealthy Texas senator with aspirations for the White House.

Representing her holds the potential for career suicide since the powerful senator will do anything to keep the name of his son from being raked through the mud — which would be required since the son had a history of slapping around prostitutes and dates.

He comes to a critical fork in the road: will he continue with the dream life in “the Bubble” of Highland Park, or will he provide the counsel for this young mother?

As the Texas Monthly said, The Color of Law is “an unbeatable legal thriller with a lot of heart.”

It would be a great novel for a group of university students to work through along with To Kill a Mockingbird, which it continually refers back to. (Fair, warning, however: If Grisham is PG and Turow is R, Gimenez’s first novel is maybe a PG-13. Or, say, PG-16.)

I won’t be surprised if sometime I find out that “Mark Gimenez” is a pen name for Larry James. For through the events of the story, Gimenez forces us to think about the gap between a place like Highland Park and a place like East Dallas. How could two places be so close and so far?

I liked knowing the city where the action is set. I’ve driven down those roads (Lover’s Lane, Mockingbird, Preston Road, etc.) and seen those shopping centers.

But at the same time, there is discomfort. Here are some passages:

“A concrete-and-steel landscape as far as the eye can see, all the way to the brown haze of pollution that perpetually rings the city above the loop, treeless and barren, the city’s master plan obvious — to pave over every square inch of green . . . . Which might explain Dallas’s ranking as the ugliest major city in America. Other than women, Dallas has no natural beauty whatsoever. No ocean or lake or water of any kind except the Trinity River running west of downtown, used for decades as a natural sewage system and today as a big drainage ditch. No Central Park, no Rocky Mountains, and no Miami Beach. No wonderful weather. Nothing other great cities have. All Dallas has is a white X on Elm Street marking the exact spot where an American president was killed. But then, you don’t live in Dallas for any of that; you live in Dallas to make a lot of money fast.”

“Grammar skills notwithstanding, she was a fine example of what Texas men most want — a gorgeous Texas girl. Texas myths were many, but one was no myth: the most gorgeous girls in the world were found in Texas. Dallas, Texas. Girls like her, they graduate from high school or maybe junior college, and from small towns all across Texas they had straight to Dallas like moths to light. They come for the jobs, they come for the nightlife, they come for the single men making lots of money, the kind of money that buys big homes and fancy cars and fashionable clothes and glittery jewelry guaranteed to bring a smile to any Texas girl’s face. Girl wants to marry a refinery worker and live in a double-wide, she moves to Houston; girl wants to marry money and live in a mansion, she moves to Dallas.”

“Developed in 1906 on thirteen hundred acres of high land above downtown Dallas, Highland Park today is a sanctuary of elegant homes, landscaped lawns, and broad avenues canopied by towering oak trees. On its wide sidewalks European nannies and Mexican maids can be seen pushing the heirs of the great Texas fortunes in strollers while their fathers — billionaires and millionaires and the lawyers who tend to them — work in the downtown skyscrapers and their mothers play tennis at the country club and shop at Anne Fontaine, Luca Luca, and Botega Veneta in the Highland Park Village shopping center, its Spanish Mediterranean architecture and quaint stucco buildings with terra-cotta roofs and decorative wrought iron harking back to a distant time and place when great wealth was reserved for people of a certain class, not just anyone who could dunk a basketball. Visitors from California say the town reminds them of Beverly Hills, and with good reason: the same architect who designed Beverly Hills designed Highland Park. Only difference is, the founders of Beverly Hills did not file deed restrictions that legally limited home ownership in their new town to white people only; the founders of Highland Park did. Almost a hundred years later, the Town of Highland Park is a two-square-mile island entirely surrounded by the 384-square-mile City of Dallas. It’s an island of white in an ocean of color: Dallas, a city of 1.2 million residents, is now only 39 percent white; while Highland Park, a town of 8,850 residents, remains 98 percent white, with not a single home owned by a black person. It’s an island of wealth — on any given day over a hundred homes in Highland Park will be listed for sale at prices exceeding $1 million. It’s an island immune from the crime and social ills that affect Dallas — Highland Park kids call their hometown “the Bubble,” happy to be insulated from the outside world that beckons at the town boundary — albeit an island without a river or stream or even a moat to keep the outside world out, only the highest home prices in Texas, a well-armed police force, and a long-standing reputation that if you’re black or brown and don’t live there, you’d damn well better be passing through.”

“Thirty-six years Scott Fenney had lived in Dallas and not once had he driven into South Dallas. White people drove south of downtown three times each year and only for events held within the gated Fair Park grounds — the State Fair, the Oklahoma-Texas football game, and the Cotton Bowl game — being careful to stay on the interstate, to take the Fair Park exit, and to drive directly through the park gates without detour or delay. White people never drove into South Dallas, into the neighborhoods and mean streets of South Dallas, into the other Dallas of crime and crack cocaine, prostitution and poverty, drive-by shootings and gangbangers, into black Dallas . . . .”

When he continues to represent the woman on trial, his senior partner says to him:

“When I graduated from law school, Scotty, a wise older lawyer gave me some good advice. He said, ‘Dan, every new lawyer must make a fundamental choice from which every other decision in his professional life will flow. And that choice is simple: Do you want to do good or do well? Do you want to make money or make the world a better place? Do you want to drive a Cadillac or a Chevrolet? Do you want to send your kids to private schools or public schools? Do you want to be a rich lawyer or a poor lawyer?’ He said, ‘Dan, if you want to do good, go work for legal aid and help the little people fighting their landlords and the utility companies and the police and feel good about it. But don’t have regrets twenty years later when your classmates are living in nice homes and driving new cars and taking vacations in Europe. And you have to tell your kids they can’t go to an Ivy League school because you did good.’”

Well, I have so many other passages marked. It is about Dallas, but it far transcends one city. It’s about lawyers, but it moves far beyond that.

It’s about justice, isolation, racism, materialism, law, service, courage, character, and beauty. (“Rebecca Fenney was still remarkably beautiful, still the most beautiful woman in Highland Park, still able to compete with a twenty-two-year old for her lawyer. But the day would come for her, she knew; and with each passing day, Rebecca Fenney was a day older and a day less beautiful.”)

It’s about Atticus Finch. Even before he was Gregory Peck.

At a critical moment when Fenney is explaining to his senior partner that without good representation his client would unfairly be put to death in Texas, the older man got a puzzled look and replied, “And how does that affect your life?” For anyone who’s read the gospels, they know how important that question is.

It’s a question that hits him hard in the nose when his former secretary doesn’t seem too torn up by his leaving. She says:

“For eleven years I’ve fetched your dry cleaning and coffee, run your personal errands, paid your personal bills, shopped for gifts for your wife and child and clients, lied to clients for you . . . Did you care about me? About my life? You never once asked about my life. Do you know I have a handicapped child and that’s the only reason I’ve put up with you for all these years? Because I needed the money? You didn’t know and you didn’t care. Did you care when Mr. Walker got fired? No. Like every other lawyer here, you care only about yourself.”

The ending is not as strong as the rest, I thought, but, heh–it’s a first novel. And quite a good one at that. I look forward to more novels from Gimenez.

Reading it makes me very thankful for those who are working to bridge the gap between haves and have nots, and it makes me grateful for those lawyers I know who still understand that the color of law is not green. They are, indeed, salt and light in the world.

I agree — sort of. The community is drawn together in authentic love and honesty when they, together, pursue the mission of God. It’s like the community that formed in The Wizard of Oz or the Lord of the Rings trilogy: unlikely people are brought together by engaging in a mission larger than themselves.

And yet . . . true community is itself the goal. Or at least a taste of the goal. God is seeking to bring all things together again — think “new creation” and “reconciliation” — and that means that community will break out.

But this community can be spoiled if it turns in on itself, forgetting that the work of God continues.

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CBS hoped there would be Katie Couric fans who would follow her to CBS. Diane and I have done just that. From Brokaw to Couric. Last night we got to see Jim Wallis talk about how many evangelicals are taking seriously the challenge to be “completely pro-life” (to quote Ron Sider). He kept resisting efforts to pin him as a person on the right or left, insisting that it isn’t about being a Republican or a Democrat but about being a Christ-follower who goes deeper in the call of the kingdom. When he said he thought he was something of a moderate, Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, said that the only thing in the middle of the road is dead cats and smelly skunks. That added so much to the segment.

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Sorry I haven’t been very involved in comments the last few days. Just haven’t had time to keep up. Thanks for the discussions, though. Page loads have bumped up a bit the last couple weeks. Don’t know what that means in terms of actual people — but thanks.

As I went and returned, I read Shane Claiborne’s new book The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical.

Read with care. This young man could rock your world! The very idea: living as an ordinary radical. It’s like Dallas Willard with steroids and dreadlocks. Claiborne believes that a Christian is, by definition, a disciple: a follower of Jesus. One who is called to participate in God’s work in this world.

My thanks to Zondervan for publishing this book. I’m sure it wasn’t a safe decision. Many won’t like it. Some will fume and rant. But I was inspired.

Claiborne, a member of The Simple Way in Philadelphia, is an activist in the best Christian sense: one who is willing to put his life on the line for justice and compassion. Here are some samples:

“We live in a world that wants things bigger and bigger. We want to supersize our fries, sodas, and church buildings. But amid all the supersizing, many of us feel God doing something new, something small and subtle. This thing Jesus called the kingdom of God is emerging across the globe in the most unexpected places, a gentle whisper amid the chaos. Little people with big dreams are reimagining the world.”

“As I’ve heard my old mentor Tony Campolo say, ‘If we were to set out to establish a religion in polar opposition to the Beatitudes Jesus taught, it would look strikingly similar to the pop Christianity that has taken over the airwaves of North America.’”

It doesn’t take much imagination to predict that this book will join Don Miller’s Blue Like Jazzas a favorite among university students.

My response? First, I’d have to say that I don’t know anything about the church, and I’m sure it’s made up of people seeking the Way of Christ in this world.

However, I’m not sure it could be said better than Randall Balmer does in his excellent new book Thy Kingdom Come: An Evangelical’s Lament. After tracing the history of Baptists in America from Roger Williams to Isaac Backus to George Truett (who defended the separation of church and state at the Capitol Building in D.C. in 1920), and after pointing to two key ideas of the Baptist tradition — adult baptism and liberty of individual conscience, “generally expressed in the shorthand phrase ‘separation of church and state’” — and after showing how Christians in the best of that tradition have sought to have an impact on the morality of their society without seeking to intertwine their faith with one political party and without eviscerating the first amendment, Balmer wrote:

I came to Texas in search of Baptists. What irony! There at the heart of Baptist country, Baptist principles regarding the separation of church and state have all but disappeared. What was once a proud and mighty — and defining — tradition of ensuring that government did not interfere with religion and religion did not meddle with government has withered beneath the onslaughts of misguided individuals who seek to impose their own views on the rest of society. The gospel is compromised, American Protestantism is imperiled, and the republic itself suffers from the massive disappearance of Baptists from the American landscape.

Christianity itself needs more Baptists, women and men willing to reconnect with the scandal of the gospel and not chase after the chimera of state sanction. We need women and men prepared to stand on conviction and articulate the faith in the midst of a pluralistic culture, not by imposing their principles on the remainder of society but by following the example of Jesus and doing what Baptists have always done best: preaching the gospel and not lusting after temporal power and influence.