Hot Docs 2005

It’s that time of year again. So, even though I’m crazy busy at work, I’ve got tickets to 11 documentaries showing at this year’s Hot Docs documentary film festival. Here’s what I’ll be seeing:

New Yorkminster Park Baptist Church Site

Yorkminster Park Baptist Church is the church Brooke and I attended for about four years. We were married there in 2002, and even though we’ve been going somewhere else lately, I still serve on a board there and until recently, had been their webmaster.

One of the first things I did upon agreeing to update their web site was bring in my friend (and one-time boss) Jay Kerr to undertake a badly-needed redesign. Ten months later, I’m happy to say that the site looks fantastic, navigates well, and validates. Jay used Movable Type as a lightweight content-management system so that church staff and volunteers can make their own updates and have a proper archive of past events.

The redesign even got a mention from Anil Dash on the SixApart Professional Network. Bravo!

Harper’s May 2005

There are two related and equally discouraging (but must-read) articles in this month’s Harper’s magazine. Both “Inside America’s Most Powerful Megachurch” and “Feeling the Hate with the National Religious Broadcasters” have me feeling more miserable than ever to be connected in any way with the so-called “evangelical” church.

Despite the tone of condescension and vitriol in Lewis Lapham’s editorial, the articles themselves are, on the whole, clear-eyed. The few exceptions are of the standard “look at the religious freak show” variety and even I find that less offensive than I used to.

Most disturbing is the growing trend toward triumphalism in the fundamentalist churches since Bush’s reelection, as well as the corporatization of the church. Under the guise of diversity, many of the megachurches are actually enforcing monolithic thinking on a whole range of issues, many of them political.

Here’s a telling quote from Chris Hedges’ article, on the National Religious Broadcasters’ convention:

“[Radio host and pastor James] MacDonald quotes liberally from the Book of Revelation, the only place in the New Testament where Jesus (arguably) endorses violence and calls for vengeance against nonbelievers. It is, along with the apocalyptic visions of St. Paul, the movement’s go-to text. Rarely mentioned these days is the Jesus of the Gospels, the Jesus who speaks of the poor and the marginalized, who taught followers to turn the other cheek and love their enemies, the Jesus who rejected the mantle of secular power.”

I used to think of the Christian Right as a sort of crazy uncle. You know, still part of the family, but somebody to be a little embarrassed by. But I’m no longer thinking that way. I don’t recognize these people as family at all any more. I wonder how I ever could have.

If it weren’t for progressive Christian voices like those of Jim Wallis (God’s Politics), Brian McLaren (A Generous Orthodoxy) and Anne Lamott (Plan B), I’m not sure where I’d be these days.

Valpolicella

Valpolicella
Valpolicella Region, Veneto, Italy.

Just a sample. I got back from Italy last night and am still a little bit jetlagged. I have lots of photos and notes and will try to post a short recap of the trip sometime this weekend. In a word, though, Italy is enchanting.