Mr. Locke’s Classroom

I’m starting a Theology on Tap group that will meet on my front porch every Thursday this summer at 7:00. Please come join me for beer, theology, and protest of stupid copyright laws.

What?

Yeah, I’m not really starting a Theology on Tap because I’m that attached to the concept (although it’s a good one). I’m starting a theology on tap because my friend Adam Walker Cleaveland just wrote a blog post tossing out the mere idea of starting a theology on tap group for his church, and within six hours, he received an email notification from the group that apparently holds the trademark for the term “theology on tap.” They basically told him he couldn’t use the name without paying them money. Oh, and this is a ministry, too.

WTF?!?!?!?!?!! (uh oh, has anyone trademarked “WTF” yet?)

Better yet:  WTFWJD???? (Ryan, you’d better hurry up and trademark that one.)

So, even though I actually think the name “Theology on Tap” is a little hokey and overused, I’m now going to start one, and yes, that’s EXACTLY what I’m going to call it: THEOLOGY ON TAP. Every Thursday night at 7pm, my front porch. Bring your favorite beer, and I’ll share some of mine with you. We’ll print t-shirts, flyers, and publicize the heck out of it. Oh, and if you’re not in New Jersey but still want to participate, I’d encourage you to start your own THEOLOGY ON TAP wherever you live. If thousands of us all do it together, I doubt the copyright Nazis who “own” the words (ridiculous, isn’t it?) Theology on Tap will really be able to sustain that many lawsuits. And even if they try, they’ll end up looking as stupid and foolish and selfish as when ASCAP sued the Girl Scouts of America for singing copyrighted songs around their campfires.

Sheesh. What an idiotic world we live in.

See you tonight for THEOLOGY ON TAP!!!

From Matthew 26 & 27 (you know the story):

Then one of the twelve—the one called Judas Iscariot—went to the chief priests and asked, “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?” So they counted out for him thirty silver coins. From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over.

When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the Twelve. And while they were eating, he said, “I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me.” They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other, “Surely not I, Lord?”

Jesus replied, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.”

Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, “Surely not I, Rabbi?” Jesus answered, “Yes, it is you.”

Then Jesus went…to a place called Gethsemane…Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people. Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.” Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him.

Jesus replied, “Friend, do what you came for.”

When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the silver coins to the chief priests and the elders. “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.”

What is that to us?” they replied. “That’s your responsibility.”

So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.

From a different story (one you probably didn’t hear):

Each one of you plays the hero in your own story, but chances are you’ve also been assigned the role of villain once or twice in someone else’s story, perhaps without even realizing it.  Now imagine if that story — not your story — were the only story to survive…

Jesus warned me this would happen. He said, “You shall be cursed for generations…but you will come to rule over them. You will exceed all of them, for you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.”  Jesus was a great man…but Matthew? Matthew was a liar. Well…he did get a few things right.

The bit about the 30 pieces of silver is true enough. I did go to the Pharisees. We did agree on a price. Do you really think our plan would have worked if I’d said “Jesus sent me to you because he wants to turn himself in, and he wants you to kill him.”  No.  Jesus was right.  The only language the Pharisees understand is money. And they bought our story—hook, line, and sinker.

Now the last supper…you should have seen the look on the other disciples’ faces when Jesus said “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me.” Who hadn’t dipped their hands in that bowl that night? They really scrambled to get themselves off the hook, each loudly protesting his innocence.  But is that what a true friend does? Clear his own name when he’s most needed? Jesus meant it when he said “Woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.” But I wish you could have seen his eyes…his eyes looked right at me, and they said, “I’m sorry, my friend, for what they’re going to put you through in my name.”

He called me friend one last time after that. It was in the Garden, when I brought the chief priests and the elders to arrest him. The sign was pre-arranged, but not between the Pharisees and me. If all that was needed was an identifying sign, I could have just said, “The one I slap is the man; arrest him.”  No.  A kiss is how you say goodbye to someone you love. It was our sign, our plan.  But Jesus must have seen in my eyes the doubt and uncertainty.  Could I go through with it?  What kind of friend… Even in obedience… Calmly — Reassuringly — Compassionately — Jesus looked at me one last time and said, “Do what you came for…friend.”

Of course I gave the money back to the Pharisees. What need had I, or Jesus ever had for money? I wasn’t seized with remorse, though, and I didn’t hang myself. Didn’t I tell you Matthew was a liar? The disciples never understood Jesus while he was alive. Why would any reasonable person assume that would suddenly change after he died? It didn’t.

Jesus was my friend, and he sacrificed his life for me. Was it too much to ask that I sacrifice my name, my story for him?

____________________________

*Written for my Intro to Speech class.  The assignment was to retell a biblical story in your own words…or someone else’s.

Ok, so I don’t usually hawk products or services on my blog, just ideologies. BUT… I get asked on a fairly regular basis if I do webdesign or webconsulting, and I do–I just haven’t been very organized or “systematic” about it up to this point. I’ve worked for pay, for free, for large organizations, for smaller ones…and usually just make up the rules as I go. (You can see some of the results to the right). But I’ve always been a little uncomfortable with charging an hourly rate for a project that isn’t clearly defined, or worried that I’m charging too much (or too little) money for the type of services I’m providing, or the types of people I’m providing them to. Plus, now that I’m back in school, a regular secondary stream of income would be nice, so I decided I needed to get organized. The result? 300 Dollar Websites. A flat rate for some very specific (and appropriately limited) services that I enjoy doing — I’m especially hoping to help small organizations or individuals who currently have little or no web presence, and I’m pretty good at working patiently with people who are not too technically inclined.

Of course, that probably doesn’t apply to most people reading this blog — but you can still help me by passing on the word to anyone you know who might be looking for some inexpensive, simple and straightforward web work. More information can be found on the $300 Websites tab at the top of my blog. Thanks in advance for anyone you send my way!

This post was inspired by Pastor Ellen (one of my last remaining Methodist Pastors) who emailed me the following question as she prepares for a class:

Did Jesus know who he was and what he was going to do on earth? At what point did he know if he did? How does that connect w/fully man and fully God?

It’s a question that we’re dealing with right now in my Systematic Theology class, and one we dealt with last semester in my Early/Medieval Church History Class. And once again, I’m on the verge of throwing up my arms and yelling, “WHO CARES?”

Ok, it’s not that I don’t really care. I think maybe I just don’t care quite as much as most of Christendom throughout history.

I think we’re a little over-obsessed with the whole “Who was Jesus” question. Maybe we miss the boat sometimes when we spend all our time, energy, intellect, councils, and creeds trying to figure out the nature of Jesus’ humanity and divinity, and to what extent, and in what way, and when, and….

Jesus didn’t really tell us that we had to spend a lot of time trying to figure out who he was.  In  fact, of all his many teachings and acts, Jesus only brought up the question once.  But he did spend a LOT of time telling us other things we should do, like “feed my sheep” and “love one another as I have loved you.”  And Jesus’ disciples certainly didn’t acknowledge him as divine, or messiah, or much of anything else when they first chose to follow him — unlike today, where we expect people to confess him as divine savior as a precursor to following him.  I imagine that Jesus’ disciples followed him because he seemed somehow interesting or compelling to them — or maybe because they had heard about how awesome he was from others.  Some probably even followed him for the wrong reasons entirely.

I wonder if you really have to understand who Jesus is to recognize the value in what he told us to do, and then to just do it.  And then, long into your journey, if you decide, like Peter, that Jesus is the Son of God, good for you.  If, on the other hand, you stick with Jesus’ own preferred designation of himself (Son of Man)…great!  Jesus didn’t criticize or disown the other disciples who didn’t (or couldn’t) answer the question.  But please, please, please…let’s not waste any more time on councils, creeds, theological tomes, or debates while we could actually be doing the work Jesus asked us to do…whoever he was/is.

Dear Satch,

I’ve been a loyal fan since I was in high school — when I played the song Always With Me, Always With You so many times I wore out and broke my cassette tape (I realize I’m dating myself here) Surfing With the Alien album.

I have to admit, though, some of your albums (the new CD versions I bought as soon as CD’s became popular) had been gathering a little dust on the shelf. But when I heard the new Coldplay song Viva La Vida, and heard people saying Coldplay stole it from you, I dutifully took out Is There Love in Space, dusted it off, and listened to If I Could Fly again. I do admit, they have a lot of similarities. But mostly, I was just glad for an excuse to listen to you again–I even got on the web to see what you’re up to these days. In that sense, all the publicity around your song and Coldplay’s is a good thing.

But then I read that you were suing them. And that’s where you lost me, “Saint” Joe (suing your neighbor is equally as unsaintly as stealing from him). Because I’m not sure what suing another music group will ever accomplish, except for making you look bad. Here’s what I mean:

When Coldplay first landed on my radar, I heard their song Clocks on the radio and immediately thought it sounded almost exactly like a song I wrote and recorded years ago with my high school garage band, right down to the repeating triplet piano part (which in our version was voiced by background vocals). Now, in my case, it’s obvious that there’s no way Coldplay could have possibly copied the song from us, as we only made a handful of demo tapes of the recording for our family and friends. But it does show how two separate musicians can come up with remarkably similar chord progressions and even riffs independently. When I heard Clocks, my only reaction was “Yeah, they must have good musical sense, ’cause I did that, too!”

So unless you think they deliberately sat down and said “Hey, how can we turn this Joe Satriani song into our own song” (which I think is highly unlikely, given the originality of most of what they do) I’m left asking myself why on earth you would want to sue them? Is it for the publicity? Because you’d have that even without suing them. Is it the money? Because the best way to make money as a musician should always be by writing and performing great stuff, not worrying about what “other” people are doing, and certainly not worrying about songs you wrote five years ago. Or worse — are you one of those musicians who thinks you have sole, eternal ownership of a certain way some notes are arranged on a piece of paper? I hope not, because if those sorts of musicians are successful (and I count Lars Ulrich as foremost among these), it will signal the end of creativity and growth in the music industry, not a new beginning.

I really, really hope you’ll consider backing down from your lawsuit, and recognizing Coldplay’s song for what it is: a good song that owes a debt not to you, but to whatever inspirational muse you’re both in debt to. And I hope you realize that before you lose too many fans in a new generation that overwhelmingly and unstoppably has radically new views on copyright and music ownership.  If you want to be around and relevant in the future, take a page from Radiohead’s playbook — not Metallica’s.

Despite all this, I’ll still probably go see you in concert if you’re ever in the New Jersey area. But now I’ll probably be a lot more hesitant to take my son — a burgeoning 4-year-old musician in his own right — with me. I’ll still listen to your albums, but I’m not sure how much money I’ll want to spend on them, when you seem to want to collect money in a different way. And when someday my son asks me the inevitable question about who I think is the greatest guitar player of all time…I don’t know what I’ll tell him. Because to me, greatness is about more than just technical skill. Great musicians are the ones who, in addition to precision and creativity, acknowledge at the end of the day that we don’t own the music. It’s the music that owns us.

Sincerely, but no longer yours,

Neal Locke

When I left teaching behind several years ago, I made a commitment to myself not to leave Shakespeare behind as well.  Shortly afterward, I successfully auditioned for and then played the role of Friar Laurence in a Frisco Community Theater production of Romeo and Juliet.  So when I arrived here in Princeton, and was told that the seminary was undertaking a student production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, how could I resist?  I auditioned for the role of Caliban, and found out yesterday that I got the part.

From the start, I was interested most in the character of Caliban because he is one of Shakespeare’s most complex characters.  While he is often described as a “monster” he evokes (if played well) a full range of emotions from the audience/reader:  laughter, disgust, sympathy, and even wonder.  He has been treated by various productions as villain, clown, and even tragic hero — the noble savage who is the victim of colonialism and slavery.  And like the timeless characters of Mordred and Judas, he betrays his master and teacher.

Personally, I think of him along the same lines of J.R.R. Tolkien’s character of Gollum.  In fact, I can’t help but wonder if Tolkien drew upon Caliban for inspiration.  The Tempest is one of only two Shakespearean plays (the other being A Midsummernight’s Dream) that are considered “fantasy,” and as such might have been a great interest to Tolkien, the “father” of modern fantasy literature.   When one reads (or watches the film versions of) Lord of the Rings, one doesn’t quite know whether to love, hate, fear, pity, or laugh at Gollum (who also betrays his master in the end).

In any case, it’s certainly a fascinating role, and a challenging one to play well.  Rehearsals start next week, and performances will be April 2-4 @8:00 in Scheide Hall here on Campus, and then a matinee performance Sunday, April 5th at 3:00.  Hope to see you there, my precioussssesss…