Soularize Captured

Okay, so I’ll be blogging about my Soularize experience (as well as doing a blog round-up) as soon as time allows. But for now, enjoy this video snapshot. And remember, it’s not too late to enjoy this year’s Soularize–watch this space.

Back From the Bahamas

I’m back from Soularize, and it was amazing. The people, the fellowship, the exchange of life and ideas…much to write about. But for now the day goes late, and I have a ton of stuff to catch up on. Plus, it’s my birthday. I’ll write more tomorrow. In the meantime, I leave you with this faux Dylan video courtesy of Weird Al…the first person who can tell me what’s brilliant with the lyrics will have my undying respect.

Today

Say a prayer for San Diego. God, let the flames cease their burning.

Also, I leave today for Soularize in the Bahamas. I will be posting more from there as soon as I can.

But for now, I bid you good night.

Three Comic Book Artists Wanted!

CLASSIFIED AD TIME, friends. I am looking for three comic book artists…or it could be one, I suppose, a really diverse artist. I’ll probably need a letterer too. Here’s what’s for: A book I’m wrapping up, a Christian spirituality book, a kind’ve memoir-ish title with some far-out ideas. I’ve decided that I want three comic-book interludes, in three distinct styles. They’d be 4-6 pages each in length. I’m not rolling in dough or anything but I’m willing to pay (flat fee) a competitive rate. (We can negotiate whether you’d keep the originals; I’d probably want to hold onto at least a page of each, with “first buyers’ rights” on the rest.)

Okay, here are the three styles I’m looking for:

Style One: An indie comix Daniel Clowes style.

Or Evan Dorkin:

Or maybe even Paul Pope:

…anyone who can draw interesting ordinary conversation with splashes of magic realism, in black & white.

Style Two: Manga!

I want to do something fun and flashy for this one interlude. You don’t have to be Tintin Pantoja…

…and while it won’t be as in-your-face as this:

…Jesus will be making an appearance.

Style Three: Chick Tract!

This one could be the most fun, a satire/tribute to the most incendiary “Christian” comics of all time. I’ll be summing up the message of my book in a kind’ve self-deprecating, ironic way vis-a-vis the Chick style.

So there you have it: Three styles, short stories, we’d write ‘em “Marvel style.” If you’re interested drop me an email at zoecarnate [ampersand] gmail [dot] com and we’ll talk details–you show me your portfolio, I’ll show you my manuscript, and we’ll see if we’re a good fit for each other. Feel free to post this link around the web and help drum up interest. I’m looking to commission this work around December. It’s gonna be an awesome book.

Is God Likable?

This is something Jim Burrs addresses with candor and grace here and here. It’s a tough question, an honest one, not a very Sunday-School question: Is this One we profess allegiance to a good sort of god? Is this god we hold in our hearts worthy of a passing respect, and–still more–worship? It is precisely when we take this question seriously that our faith deepens, and our “relationship with God” (so commonly bandied about in evangelical subculture) becomes genuinely relational.

The question is often posed by skeptics and atheists, but what would it look like if it came from the heart of faith and biblical literacy? My guess is it would look alot like Jack Miles’ masterful two-volume series, God: A Biography and Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God. They’re uber-challenging, and way more substantiative than many casual critiques of faith or Scripture that–by contrast to Miles–seem rather caricatured. To this day I don’t know if Miles means to be the Judeo-Christian’s best friend or ablest foe, but this reconstructive narrative should be required reading for any 21st century person of faith.

6,000 and Counting!

For the first time in nearly two months I’ve updated Sites Unseen, removing some dead links and adding over 150 new ones. We now have over 6,000 of the best websites of the alternative Christian web. Soon we’ll be getting a redesign by the inimitable John O’ Keefe, but for now it’s all there. Check it out!

Open Gatherings and Life’s Wisdom

I had a really long comment over at Andrew’s blog this past week, in response to a challenge from a friend of his. I thought might be worth revisiting here. Because I’m a big fan of getting people’s permission before quoting correspondence–even if its on a public blog or forum–I’ve changed her name to “Beth.” But the rest is essentially intact:

Hi Beth, I don’t believe we’ve met. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. May I push back on your pushing back? Before I do that, let me say that I love your idea of those set aside for a kind of ministry as wild-eyed and called by Jesus rather than a bunch of clerical bean counters. But then I have to ask…is seminary really the place that’s going to form you in this way? I mean, honestly? I think the kind of formation we receive determines in large part the kinds of people we become. 

I May as Well Admit It…I’m a House-Churcher

So Andrew’s posts really got some articulation-juices flowing in me, and I thought I’d write a little about something that I don’t think I have yet, directly, in this blog: I am an Ordinary Somebody in a house church.                     

Starfish, Spiders, and a World Without ‘Powers’

I wanted to let you know about something we at The Ooze have cooking tomorrow night. It’s free, it’s new media, and I thought you all might want to join in. It’s a Soularize Live! preview tomorrow (Thursday) at 9pm Eastern (6 Pacific) with Spencer Burke and Ori Brafman.

The Priesthood of All..?

The mysterious PostScript (who on earth are ye??), asked something insightful in relation to yesterday’s post:

Random question…If the church is a community of priests, for whom is it interceding?

My first response is “the world!”

Of course, I’m not a Hebrew or Greek scholar (unlike my interlocutor, whose identity is actually not mysterious to me), nor am I versed enough in a religious-socio-historical account of the development of ‘priesthood’ concepts globally. But my gut instinct is that when people say ‘priest’ they mean ‘ministering,’ in a deep, true sense of the word. And this could be directed in, oh, any and all of four ways–ministering unto God, Godself; ministering unto one another, ministering on behalf of humanity, and indeed, creation and the cosmos.