Confessions of a Quirky Christian Artist

I don't like liberal stuff. I don't like liberal politics. I don't like liberal social programs. It speaks to me of class envy and a culture of entitlement that I don't agree with. I don't even like the word. It sounds icky to me. It evokes in me negative character traits in all who are associated with it. So it's a bit of a bizarre experience to find myself becoming more and more 'liberal' as I research life. But I don't identify at all with any person who might identify themselves as liberal. And I do identify with many conservative people. I'm guessing this is due to the fact that the world liberal has evolved since it became a famous word for a philosophical outlook. So maybe what I am becoming could be described as 'classically liberal'. More like the founding fathers than Bill Maher and Sean Penn. What is Liberal Christian theology? I asked Google and naturally got a bunch of contradictory answers. There are those who...

Here is a very interesting idea about a cyclical nature of artistic expression mirroring the cultural life-stage. Most people I've read tend to express art history as a linear progression from cave-man stick figures up to post modern art. I really like this take better. Posted on a sculpting forum by Wayne Hanson http://www.figuresculpture.net/bio.htm     I use the analogy of art styles below for my kids in sculpting class: the 3 or 4 styles of art: 1. STOIC: any early culture and beginning artist use the stoic style automatically. Examples would be cubist art, early Egyptian art and architecture, Mycenae art, early Greek art and sculpture. Characteristics of the stoic style are religion-dictated figural rules, Masculine/ patriarchal, no emotion, symmetry, geometrical, powerful, monumental, immortal or long-lasting. Typical forms are equilateral triangle, pyramid, square. 2. CLASSICAL: any culture at its peak in the bell curve. Examples: Athens during the reign of Pericles, E...

I think I'm finally on the other end of a huge lump of activity that had me pulling two all nighters and consumed several weekends whole. Why I volunteer for this kind of punishment is beyond me. Well, no it's not. I do it because I don't see it coming. No matter how many times I've gone through this process I still don't learn. By "this process" I mean taking on a project that requires materials and/or procedures that I've never done before and making all sorts of assumptions that lead to ludicrously low-balled time estimations. First off, we have Norwescon, the biggest local Sci-fi/Fantasy convention. It's got an art show that I try to get into whenever I can. Get a little publicity, hand out class brochures, maybe get an award or two. Mostly though, I get a defined deadline. As an artist these are the only way anything gets done. I've still got over a dozen projects in the works. And so I put together a list of stuff I wanted to f...

It seems to me that the issue of what one considers "the" Bible to be is at the very beginning of the rift between liberal and conservative forms of Christianity. (Please note I put the quotation marks around the "the" in "the" Bible because there are so many versions, translations, and book counts throughout history that I can't accept the term "the" Bible as meaningful. It is not out of disrespect to the scriptures contained within.) We have on one side a group of Christians who see "the" Bible as a collection of various stuff that may or may not relate to reality or their lives, but has a nice man who said some nice things. We have on the other end of the spectrum a group of Christians who view "the" Bible as a perfect, word-for-word-and-as-literal-as-possible book with real history, real science, real prophecy, and containing every answer to any question anyone could possibly have. The folks close to this end are...

In a time when so many people are losing jobs I don't feel great about talking about my financial woes since I have a terrific job. But the whole point of this blog is to keep a chronicle of how my thought life is developing, and well, finances sometimes impact my thought life. So my parents have been graciously been paying my student loan for many years, but the recession and other factors have hit them too, and so now they can't afford to keep doing it. Now we have an extra 200 bucks a month in expenses. It's interesting timing. I had just got a raise that just put us in a state of feeling like we would have a little breathing room. I just adjusted our tithe to account for the raise. In fact, I want to talk about tithe for a minute… First off, I don't think the concept of a tithe (that is giving 10% of your gross wages to the church) is an imperative for Christians. The tithe was instituted in ancient Israel as a tax. It covered both religious and civil infr...

A question I've been more a more interested in lately. Here's a theory I've not come up with a rebuttal for:   We only do what we want to do.   At first, it seems easy to find counter-examples to this. In fact, every day I get out of bed and suffer through about half and hour of feeling like crap. I don't want to ever get out of bed. Unless I've slept at least 11 hours and can lay there for 20 minutes or so. I also have worked at McDonalds and Jack in the Box. I also clean the bathtub from time to time. Diaper changes, tithe paying, exercise and countless other things I've done despite wishing that I was doing something else. But the thing is that all of these things I do are being done in service to something that I DO want to do. I clean the bathtub because I don't want to bathe in filth. I changed diapers because I wanted to be a good father and husband. I pay tithe because I want to be in a community of believers that I support. I exercise b...

My mom just got back from Rwanda where she was doing missionary/teaching work. I'm very proud of her. I had a daily itinerary for her trip so I could pray for specific things she would be dealing with. What I found is that I was spending 90% of my prayer undermining people's free will. I never really thought about until I stopped believing in free will, but man, we 'prayer warriors' (Evangelicaleese for: people who actively petition God on an aggressive schedule.) are all about actively attacking people's ability to make decisions completely on their own. Here are a few examples from my recent prayers: God, please keep the guards calm and peaceful as my mother passes checkpoints. God, please help the government officials and shipping workers to be honest when they deliver Mom's books to the library. God, please open the women's minds to the alternative food sources Mom is proposing to them. (There were plenty of non-will related prayers as well such as...