This issue celebrates the thirty-fifth anniversary of The Wittenburg Door. (Hey, Mazel tov to us, I guess, huh?)
     Coincidentally, I am preparing this column Jan. 17, 2007, my thirty-fifth birthday as a follower of Jesus Christ.
     A few weeks after my conversion, I found myself co-hosting a night-time talk-show on KBFI Television. I don't remember the details, but someone that night ended up giving me a copy of this little magazine that looked more like a newsletter that had been printed on a mimeograph machine.
     That was my introduction to The Wittenburg Door and I loved it. I immediately plunked over the $10 to subscribe, and have remained a subscriber ever since. [Times have changed. It now costs $29.95. Still a bargain.]
     The Wittenburg Door was important during my early years as a believer because, although biblically sound (most of the time) it told me it was OK to be different from the "normality" I saw in Christian culture around me.
     Mike Yaconelli and his band of "Holy Fools"—Bill McNabb, Wayne Rice, Dan Pegoda, Ben Patterson, Denny Rydberg and Craig Wilson (who for some reason now calls himself McNair Wilson)—brought true "holy laughter" to the church in the pages of The Door. These young, dedicated believers took great delight in exposing our feet of clay and tipping over our idols.
     Over the years, The Door showed us that a sense of humor ought to be a requirement to get permanent residency papers for the Kingdom of God, if only for its effectiveness in mocking our idolatry.
     The Scriptures are clear that we are not to be conformed to this world, but we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. The problem with us religious folks is that we become non-conforming conformists.
     In the 1950s, I was consumed with the beatnik culture. I let my hair grow long, dressed in black, listened to jazz, and read Jack Kerouac's On the Road. My favorite stand-up comics were Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl. I was dissatisfied with my life in small town Arizona and I felt a disdain for the Leave it to Beaver culture at large. Eventually I made my way to Greenwich Village in New York.
     The problem was that once there, I saw that everyone else was doing the same thing. We were all non-conforming conformists. I saw the same phenomenon in the '60s with the hippies.
     After I became a believer, I saw the same thing taking place in the Church in the '70s and every decade since.
     Christians tend to want to be like everybody else. We are conformed to the religious norms for the time and place we inhabit. We put on our "Sunday best" when we go to church; we conduct our services in expensive buildings; we replicate the consumer culture with "Christian" media.
     We are told when to smile, when to look someone in the eye, how strong our handshake should be, how to share our faith. There are endless don'ts—don't use coarse language, don't interrupt the preacher, don't frown, etc. If you're in the charismatic movement, you're told when to raise your hands, when to speak in tongues, when to pray.
     It wasn't always like this.
     The pagan philosopher Celsus, writing in the second century, was appalled at how different the Christian brotherhood was from every other group in society.
     Celsus noted that other mystery religions required seekers who have "clean hands and a prudent tongue" as well as those "free from all pollution."
     "But let us hear what kind of persons these Christians invite. 'Everyone,' they say, 'who is a sinner, who is devoid of understanding, who is a child, and, to speak generally, whoever is unfortunate, him will the Kingdom of God receive.'"
     So, why do we keep trying to be someone we're not? Why keep trying to fit in to the wrong world?
     This is the great difference between the modern Church and the early followers of The Way. To them, faith was plainly an invasion of their lives by a totally new quality of life, a brand new creation that required the destruction of each person's closed system of cause and effect.
     Did you ever hear the old sermon illustration about the swan and the crane? Listen to it again, anyway.
     A beautiful swan alighted by the banks of the water where a crane was wading about, seeking snails in the mud. The crane looked at the swan in stupid wonder and then inquired: "Where do you come from?"
     "I come from heaven!" replied the swan.
     "And where is heaven?" asked the crane.
     "Have you never heard of heaven?" And the swan went on to describe the grandeur of the Eternal City in eloquent terms, but without arousing the slightest interest on the part of the crane.
     Finally the crane asked: "Are there any snails there?"
     "Snails!" repeated the swan; "No! Of course not."
     "Then," said the crane, as it continued its search along the slimy banks of the pool, "you can have your heaven. I want snails!"

Ole's morning bible study is available here.

     The purpose of The Door has been to use satire to show the Church how we're giving up our birthright of joy and peace for a mess of snail pottage, snail soup, barbequed snail, deep fried snail tails, snail hash, freeze dried snails....
     In 1995, Mike Yaconelli donated The Door to us. With all the organizations in the world, I have often wondered, "Why us?"
     Maybe Mike saw that our little community of misfits would continue his legacy of goading the Church out of its natural tendency to conform to something other than faith.
     Also, uh, I guess he knew escargot gives us hives.

Ole's morning bible study is available here.