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Tim Tebow is not Facing the Giants

2012-01-16T11:49:00.001-05:00

This weekend, the New York Giants upset the defending champion Green Bay Packers while the Tim Tebow–led Denver Broncos fell to the New England Patriots.

The Giants might make it to the Super Bowl, but Tebow will not, so that means that Tim Tebow is not facing the Giants.

But not just on the football field, but in a much more profoundly theological way.

A few weeks ago, my family sat down for movie night and watched Facing the Giants. Here is the trailer:

It is an emotional story of a high school football coach, Grant Taylor (compellingly acted by Alex Kendrick, who also directed and co-wrote the movie), as he is facing the difficulties of his life (the metaphorical “giants”). He is on the verge of losing his job as coach of the Shiloh Eagles because they keep losing. He and his wife are heart-broken by their inability to have a baby. The couple are scraping by on his small salary and cannot afford to buy a new car.

But then he prays.

And his attitude changes. He decides that instead of worrying about all that’s going wrong in his life, he will live whole-heartedly to glorify God in everything he does.

He tells the team that he is initiating a new team philosophy: “We need to give God our best in every area. And if we win, we praise Him, and if we lose, we praise Him.”

It is at this stage in the story that miracles begin to happen: Somebody anonymously gives Grant a brand new pickup truck. The Eagles begin to win. And his wife discovers she’s pregnant.

***SPOILER ALERT!***

I have to tell the rest of the story of this movie in order to make my point. The culmination of the movie has this small Christian school’s football team making the state playoffs. I was hoping that they’d lose so that this movie can provide my three children (ages 13, 11, and 11) the lesson that winning is not all there is in life and that what the coach says is really true: “If we win, we praise Him, and if we lose, we praise Him.”

And they did indeed lose! The sad coach says to his wife, “I thought for sure we’d win that game!”

But wait a minute! The other team cheated by having an ineligible player on their team, so the Eagles get to advance in the playoffs due to the forfeit! What a miracle!

Extraordinarily, the Eagles make it all the way to the State Championship against the big, ominous Giants, who are dressed in all black, and have a fat mean-spirited man as their head coach. Against all odds, the Eagles win on a field goal by the kid who also facing his “giant” of feeling inadequate to play on the football team. Wow!

As the credits began to scroll, one of my kids said, “That was amazing! If this really didn’t happen, I wouldn’t believe it!”

”What?” This caused me to stop everyone from going up to bed. “This didn’t really happen,” I said, “This is a fictional movie.”

That’s when the anger and crying began. They were so upset that this movie was not true. They felt that it was wrong, down-right lying, to tell such a story if it did not really happen.

The movie’s premise was that if you prayed and gave your all to God, life will turn out wonderful and all the hardships in life will be overcome by miracles from God. You will win the big game. My kids wanted to believe that.

And when I told my kids “This movie is fiction,” they understood that to mean “This movie is a lie.”

Which it is.

God never promises that if we give him our best in every area of our lives that all our trials will be overcome by miracles and that our lives will become wonderful. Exactly the opposite is taught:

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2-4)

Coach Grant Taylor told his team, “We need to give God our best in every area. And if we win, we praise Him, and if we lose, we praise Him.” That is exactly right. The Apostle Peter was willing to praise God no matter what because he knew that the ultimate reward for faith in Christ is an inheritance that is yet to come. Jesus suffered and died, but overcame that with resurrection. We have that same hope in our trials. He wrote,

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.”

Now to Tim Tebow.

Tim Tebow and his faith in Jesus Christ has been a lightning rod of contention as his Broncos unexpectedly made the NFL playoffs and then won last week against the heavily-favored Pittsburgh Steelers. Tebow’s dramatic overtime win (on the first play from scrimmage in OT, Tebow completed an 80 yard touchdown to win it) had people all aflutter. In that win, he threw for 316 yards and averaged 31.6 yards per completion. (Isn’t the Bible’s “most famous verse” John 3:16? And hey- Isn’t the coach of the Broncos named John? Whoa!) Facebook and Twitter were filled with people saying that Tim Tebow’s Christian faith must be the reason they won that game. He must be going all the way to win the Super Bowl.

That’s the way Alex Kendrick would have wrote it: The Broncos would have faced the Giants in Super Bowl XLVI and won it in dramatic fashion.

But this is reality. This is Tim Tebow living a real, authentic Christian life: one that truly says, “We need to give God our best in every area, and if we win, we praise Him, and if we lose, we praise Him.”

Tebow works hard at what he does (playing football) and because of that, he has experienced success. But Tebow knows that there is more to life than winning football games.

Legendary sports writer Rick Reilly recently wrote an article at ESPN.com titled “I Believe in Tim Tebow.” It is worth clicking over to read. In it, he explains what kind of person Tebow is.

“Who among us is this selfless?

Every week, Tebow picks out someone who is suffering, or who is dying, or who is injured. He flies these people and their families to the Broncos game, rents them a car, puts them up in a nice hotel, buys them dinner (usually at a Dave & Buster's), gets them and their families pregame passes, visits with them just before kickoff (!), gets them 30-yard-line tickets down low, visits with them after the game (sometimes for an hour), has them walk him to his car, and sends them off with a basket of gifts.
Home or road, win or lose, hero or goat.”

There is a difference between the fictional story of “Facing the Giants” and the real-life story of Tim Tebow. Christians who want to use athletes’ or celebrities’ success as “proof” for the goodness of Christianity had better hear this.

NFL.com’s Jeff Darlington explains it best:

For the first time in seven days, each of which I spent in Denver because of Tim Tebow's polarizing impact on the NFL, the Broncos' quarterback and I finally had the chance to exchange more than the daily salutations I'd come to expect from the overbearing nature of Tebowmania.
We walked toward the exit -- among the last to leave the locker room after a 41-23 loss to the Patriots on Sunday -- as I began to ask the first of what I hoped would be a series of questions.
"How is the strength of your faith impacted after a loss?" I started.
"It puts things in perspective," Tebow said. "God is still God. I still have a relationship with Christ, and a loss doesn't change anything. Win or lose, everything is still the same. What matters is the girl I'm about to see, Kelly Faughnan. If I can inspire hope in someone, then it's still a good day."
And just like that, with a transition smooth enough to make a movie producer proud, Tebow crossed through the threshold of a doorway to the glowing face of a 22-year-old survivor of a brain tumor. After one question, the interview was over. A more important priority awaited him.

That’s the kind of movie “Facing the Giants” could have been.

Things the Government Has Done Quite Well

2012-01-12T23:00:00.001-05:00

We’ve heard the suspicions, especially lately with the health care debate. People do not trust that the government can do anything well. I’ve heard a number of people use the United States Postal Service as the ultimate example. We stand in long lines at the Post Office. UPS and FedEx delivers packages more efficiently and at a better cost. Okay.

But I still think that the government has actually done some things quite well.

Building the interstate highway system: We boast the best auto and truck transportation system in the world.
Public Libraries: Most nations don't even have these.
National Park Service: Our National Parks are amazingly preserved and managed.
NASA: Not only are we the only nation to step foot on the moon, but because of the space program, our nation has developed amazing advances in materials, electronics, communications, and medicine.
The Food and Drug Administration: We can actually trust that the medicine we take is what's on the label because of the government, unlike most of the world.
The Centers for Disease Control: This agency has shown to be exceptional in combating emerging diseases and health risks, including birth defects, West Nile virus, avian, swine, and pandemic flu, E. coli, and bioterrorism.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation: Because of the FDIC, we can bank with confidence that our money will always be our money. Before the FDIC, if a bank lent more than it could support, people would lose their life savings.

So, contrary to what the pundits want us to believe, government is not always evil.

In fact, government is "God’s servant to do you good" (Romans 13:4).

Miroslav Volf Against Libertarian Economics

2012-01-11T14:17:00.001-05:00

I’ve been reading Miroslav Volf’s absolutely excellent book, Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Work. In the final chapter, he moves into ways a Christian theology of work can overcome the many ways we see work in our contemporary society alienating us from being fully human. His premise is this:

“Human work, properly understood theologically, is related to the goal of all human history, which will bring God, human beings, and the nonhuman creation into ‘shalomic’ harmony.” (p. 85)

Volf (Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale University Divinity School and the Founding Director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture) offers a pneumatological theology of work, in which the Holy Spirit gifts human beings with the abilities to provide not only for their own sustenance, but to work for the common good.

“When God calls people to become children of God, the Spirit gives them calling, talents, and ‘enablings’ (charisms) so that they can do God’s will in the Christian fellowship and in the world in anticipation of God’s eschatological new creation. All Christians have several gifts from the Spirit. Since most of these gifts can be exercised only through work, work must be considered a central aspect of Christian living.” (p. 124)

Therefore, if a large aspect of being a human is to work for the common good, then this leads Volf to criticize the economic philosophy of libertarianism, which centers on individual freedom, placing individual liberty as the most fundamental rule in economics. According to libertarian economics, we must let the free market rule itself. As individuals work for their own self-interests, the “invisible hand” of the unfettered free market transforms the individuals’ pursuit of their own interests into the public good. The best way to care for others, according to libertarian economics, is for everyone to work for themselves. The common good is best served when people do not take economic responsibility for others, but rather by seeking their own self interests.

But such an economic system rubs against the way God has created human beings.

“Individual self-interest can be pursued validly but it must be accompanied by the pursuit of the good of others. These two pursuits are not in principle mutually exclusive but complementary (though in concrete cases they often conflict). My own good and the good of the whole human family are both included in the shalom of the new creation. Therefore, no contradiction is involved when a person ‘gives himself up’ for someone and ‘loves himself’ at the same time (see Eph. 5:25-28). (p. 192)

“Unlike libertarian philosophy, Christian faith does make demands on people to accept economic responsibility for others. And these demands are not only demands of generosity. They are demands on them to practice justice. Both in the Old and the New Testaments the concept of justice includes concern for the underprivileged (see Matt. 6:1; Ps. 112:9). Paul, for instance, calls the financial help of gentile Christians to the Jerusalem poor ‘justice’ (2 Cor. 9:9). Correspondingly, the mere refusal of the wealthy to aid the poor can be considered a criminal act (Ezek. 16:49).” (p. 194)

“Important as it is, from a Christian perspective, respect for individual liberty will not suffice as a basic rule for the market game. Respect for the right of sustenance of all individuals must be added as a rule that is even more basic than respect for individual liberty. If the market will not behave according to this rule, it is the market that has to go, not the rule. For the basic criterion of the humanness of an economic system is whether or not it secures lasting justice for the poor.” (p. 195)

The answer is not Marxism, according to Volf, but “a market economy directed by a vision of the common good.” In other words, a market economy that has parameters that ensure individual freedom while also caring for the basic needs of all people.

Religious Freedom Under Attack By Conservative Christians

2011-12-15T17:24:00.001-05:00

‎”The conservative Florida Family Association, which is pushing advertisers to drop "All-American Muslim,” cheered Lowe's decision. The group called the TLC show "propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda's clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values." -CNN

And here I thought this was the "Land of the Free."

I guess that doesn't apply to American Muslims.

I say, "I am certain that your faith in Islam is dead wrong, but I'll fight to the death so that you can have religious freedom."

Why?

Because if Muslims don't have religious freedom, then we are all in a heap of danger. Christians must be the ones in the vanguard for religious freedom both here domestically and around the world. As the Center for Public Justice’s “Guidelines for Religious Freedom” states,

“Religious freedom entails not only freedom of conscience and worship; it also includes the right of citizens to conduct themselves in public life without legal or financial discrimination due to their religion. Public justice thus requires equal treatment of citizens in both the public and private practice of religion.”

After all, here we have a television show about Americans who are NOT radical Muslims, just human beings trying to get through life in American society, the kind of Muslims we all should welcome as our neighbors, and encourage to become a part of this great country.

The United States must not ever lose perhaps our most cherished freedom - the freedom of religion.

We enjoyed this year’s “Buy Nothing Day”

2011-11-26T10:14:00.001-05:00

Our family enjoyed our new traditional holiday: BUY NOTHING DAY.

While those around us allow themselves to get sucked into the crazy vortex of Black Friday insanity, succumbing to the empire of consumerism by redefining their joy in terms of what one buys, we enjoyed family time - putting up the Christmas tree, listening to Christmas carols, eating Thanksgiving leftovers, playing games, and just hanging out.

We also discussed ways to purchase meaningful Christmas gifts for our friends and family from slave-free and fairly traded sources, and how we can help the poor who do not have the luxury of defining their existence in terms of commodities purchased at the shopping mall.

If Jesus showed up at on of those long lines outside Walmart or Best Buy on Thanksgiving night, what would he say about how we Americans have allowed consumerism to overtake the celebration of his birthday?

Darwinian Economics: A good thing?

2011-11-22T08:10:00.000-05:00

New York Times economics columnist and best-selling author Robert Frank offers an interesting insight with his new book, The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good. Frank believes that in 100 years, people will no longer see Adam Smith as the intellectual founder of economics. Charles Darwin will unseat him.

Remember Adam Smith’s theory of the “Invisible Hand?” It states that when individuals buy and sell for their own advantage in unfettered free markets, they are led by an “invisible hand” that will, in the end, produce the greatest good for everyone in the society. Frank believes that the uncritical celebration by economic libertarians of Smith’s economic theory has undermined regulatory efforts to reconcile conflicts between individual and collective interests, causing harm to society.

Here’s a video from PBS featuring Frank’s proposition:

For more, read this economics column from Robert Frank in the New York Times.

Bill Moyers: plutocracy and democracy don't mix

2011-11-21T15:14:00.001-05:00

Wisdom. Moyers is a Christian with a bias against plutocracy. I'm with him on this.

Occupy Wall Street: Why do so many Christians want to dismiss this?

2011-10-24T16:35:00.001-04:00

Many Christians have been piling on the Occupy Wall Street movement. Even people I admire and respect.

It’s in vogue to caricature the entire OWS movement as merely a bunch of bratty college students who favor Marxism over capitalism.

Mike Metzger does this in his most recent Clapham Commentary found at DoggieHeadTilt.com, saying

Democratic pollster Douglas Schoen sent a researcher to Zuccotti Park last week to interview nearly 200 protesters. His company characterized the majority of protesters—mostly college graduates—as opposed to free-market capitalism and for government redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector, and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas. “Sixty-five percent say that government has a moral responsibility to guarantee all citizens access to affordable health care, a college education, and a secure retirement—no matter the cost.” This is hardly Hooverville, however. The protesters can afford Starbucks lattes and iPhones. They have no qualms about calling on friends to give money so that they can order copious amounts of pizza from capitalist pizza companies. On closer inspection, Occupy Wall Street has a decidedly Marxist take on capitalism.

While it is true that many of the protestors are what he characterizes here, there are legitimate concerns being voiced about how our political system has been subverted by crony capitalism.

As Timothy Sherratt pointed out, in a recent Capital Commentary from The Center for Public Justice, "Protest is by its nature more inchoate than coherent." In other words, when they start out, protest movements are not fully formed or developed - their rudimentary nature makes it easy for the opposing side to dismiss out-of-hand, especially as the more fringe elements of the protest gets most of the bad press coverage. This should remind us of the Tea Party's history. As Michael Scherer of Time Magazine puts it,

"The Tea Party was once a joke, an aberration, a bunch of funny people in funny hats with neither power nor a coherent message. That was back in 2009, of course, before the loosely-defined group, organized through new technology and fueled by anger over the state of the country, began knocking out incumbent GOP senators and transforming American politics. Back then, Rachel Maddow laughed at the crude implications of “tea-bagging,” and White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs joked about how little the White House cared.

Today, people around the country are rallying around a new ill-defined movement, which has for now taken its name from its first act of civil disobedience: Occupy Wall Street. For now, it looks marginal, rag-tag, ill-defined and without focus. But keep an eye on it. To paraphrase Buffalo Springfield, something may be happening here.

In its broadest outlines, this new outpouring of protest is driven by the same fuel that gave fire to the Tea Party: Anger at elites, a feeling of injustice, a concern about jobs, fear about the direction of the economy and a clear desire to take action. Whereas the Tea Party focused these furies on government, Occupy Wall Street focuses the fury on corporate America."

As protest movements mature, and more and more organized groups get on board, they increase in power and can steer the public discourse.

You don’t have to be a Marxist to want to protest how our political system is being corrupted by corporate money.

The main issues of the Occupy Wall Street movement are not that difficult to discern:

The protestors believe that the wealthiest 1% have an unjust advantage over the rest of the country’s population because they can influence the political process and tax laws with their pocketbooks, and
They believe that corporations have an imbalanced influence in Washington, unfairly getting favors in the legislative process and doing all they can to wipe out regulatory restrictions at the expense of the common good.

Conservatives can scoff at these young protestors drinking Starbucks lattes and tweeting with their iPhones, but one can purchase items made by corporations (and even affirm the goodness of corporations and capitalism) while at the same time demanding that corporations be held accountable to the people. Notice that the political conversation is beginning to shift: Even the Republican candidates for president now have to deal with these issues.

I agree with Metzger in his commentary about the historic contributions of Christianity to the establishment of capitalism, but Christianity also has a history of overcoming social injustice and economic oppression. One does not need to be a socialist to find huge problems with crony capitalism.

The Gospel: The Story of Cosmic Restoration or The Plan of Salvation?

2011-10-17T13:55:00.001-04:00

Above is my graphical representation of the Gospel. It is the four-chapter story of God’s working in history for the restoration of the cosmos that He created.

When I first present this to many Christians, they automatically place themselves, as individuals, into this timeline. “I was created, I sinned, I accepted Jesus and was redeemed/saved, and one day I will be in heaven.”

It takes a lot of de-programming to help them see this timeline not individualistically, but cosmically: that each of us are certainly in the storyline, but that the storyline is bigger than each one of us.

What God has been doing, through Christ, is the cosmic renewal of all things. When we get into the storyline, we begin to understand the story as portrayed in the Bible, not as portrayed in evangelistic tracts that seek to simplify the gospel to individual need and individual sin and individual salvation. We get the story of how God has been working throughout history to bring about his purposes.

CREATION
God creates a wonderful cosmos, and puts humanity in charge of it.

“Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’…God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’” (Genesis 1:26, 28)

FALL
Adam and Eve, however, failed in their role.

The world is cursed, in need of redemption, in need of restoration. And God begins using human beings for this very purpose. Why? Because humans are His image-bearers; We are the ones who have been called to rule God’s world in righteousness and Shalom.

REDEMPTION

Scot McKnight, in his new book, The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited, writes, “What Adam was to do in the Garden—that is, to govern this world redemptively on God’s behalf—is the mission God gives to Israel. Like Adam, Israel failed, and so did its kings. God sent his Son to do what Adam and Israel and the kings did not (and evidently could not) do and to rescue everyone from their sins and systemic evil and Satan (the adversary). Hence, the Son is the one who rules as Messiah and Lord” (p. 35).

In other words, the story of Jesus is the fulfillment of the story of Israel (and hence, the story of all of humanity). The story is about how Jesus, the Hebrew Messiah (“Anointed One,” “King”) fulfills the calling to govern this world redemptively on God’s behalf. The gospel is not first about my personal salvation from my sins, but the story of how Jesus is the King, the One that we must follow as he brings all things back into reconciliation with God (Colossians 1:19-20).

Contrary to the popular notion of the gospel in much of American evangelicalism, the story of the gospel does not start with me and my sins. It starts with God’s creation and intention for his image-bearers to rule over his creation. The story of the gospel does not skip over what God was doing in the Old Testament with Israel as if it has no bearing on the story, but is rooted in that story of Israel: their calling, their failure. The story of the gospel is about Jesus fulfilling that calling as King. When Jesus is presented to people outside the framework of the story of Israel, all sorts of strange distortions happen to the gospel. Even with good intentions (trying to make the gospel more readily understood and accessible), when we disconnect the story of Jesus with the story of Israel, the story of humanity, and the story of cosmic restoration, we get a Jesus that is truncated, altered, and easily misunderstood.

RESTORATION
The story is consummated when Jesus returns and God makes “all things new” (Revelation 21:5). Resurrected humans are then given authority to rule over the new earth, under the rulership of Jesus the King.

While Scot McKnight and I are of different theological stripes (he is an Anabaptist Arminian, I am a Neo-Calvinist), we agree that the current crop of Calvinists in America have so focused on issues of “Salvation through Justification” that they miss the larger story of the Bible. What Neo-Calvinists focus in on is the gospel story of cosmic restoration; what the new crop of Calvinists (what I call the Neo-Puritans) focus in on is how God saves people.

The latter (God saving people) is the means for the former (God restoring his creation) because the failure of humanity from their creational mandate to rule the creation (The Fall) created the chaos that Jesus Christ came to rescue the world from.

Certainly it is good news that Jesus saves each one of us from our sins in the act of Justification. But the really BIG good news is this: Jesus is the King. This is why we find that when Jesus proclaimed "the gospel" (or "good news") it was "the gospel of the kingdom" (Matthew 4:23).

Skye Jethani’s Church-365: Assist in cultural flourishing through vocation-based discipleship

2011-10-07T16:14:00.001-04:00

Skye Jethani’s recent posts at Out of Ur (part 1, part 2, part 3) are a clarion-call for churches to re-imagine their purpose and function. He calls the posts Church³⁶⁵, challenging the church to move away from the Sunday-centric model (Church⁵²) that pushes church leaders into a job of ensuring the perpetuity of their institutional church rather than on empowering and equipping people to bless the world.

In this five-part series (all of them are available at SkyeJetani.com), Jethani is talking my language. I am in the middle of starting a non-profit for the purpose of equipping believers in the exact ways that he articulates here, to encourage discipleship by and through believers’ vocations.

Jethani writes,

“We come to believe that programs rather than people are the vessels of God’s Spirit and mission in the world. When this occurs we begin to honor people for their involvement in, or service for, the church. But what they do with the remainder of their time gets little attention. When this assumption is reinforced over decades, a hierarchy of importance is established with church leaders (pastors and missionaries) at the top. Others are then only celebrated when they behave like pastors or missionaries, or when they leave their ‘worldly’ professions to devote themselves to ‘full-time Christian service.’”

What Jethani is asking the 21st-Century American church to do is to rediscover the Reformation’s deep theology of vocation.

“It was understood that all callings were valid before God, and each glorified him and provided a critical service in the world. In other words, the life of the painter, politician, or podiatrist is just as God-honoring as that of the priest when done in communion with Christ and for the benefit of others.”

Jethani says what I've been saying for years here at VanguardChurch.com, that churches should be offering commissioning services for everyone in every line of work. Every Christian is in "full-time ministry," no matter what they are doing, no matter what it says on their business card, no matter if they punch a time clock or are on salary, no matter if they are doing technical work or people work, no matter if they are paid or a volunteer, no matter if they work for their boss or for their family as a housekeeper.

He then interacts with David Kinnemann of the Barna Group (author of the new book, You Lost Me: Why Young People are Leaving the Church…And Rethinking Faith. In this book, Kinnemann insightfully states,

“For me, frankly, the most heartbreaking aspect of our findings is the utter lack of clarity that many young people have regarding what God is asking them to do with their lives. It is a modern tragedy. Despite years of church-based experiences and countless hours of Bible-centered teaching, millions of next-generation Christians have no idea that their faith connects to their life’s work. They have access to information, ideas, and people from around the world, but no clear vision for a life of meaning that makes sense of all that input (You Lost Me, page 207).”

I’m grateful that for the last six years, I’ve been doing ministry with the Coalition for Christian Outreach (CCO), a ministry that sees our mission as primarily that of equipping college students with discipleship that takes seriously how their vocations will be their way of living for Christ for the sake of the world.

Now, with my future NPO, I will be doing that coupled with the task that Jethani advocates here:

“(This is) going to be highly relational. It’s going to require an older believer in finance to mentor a younger one. It’s going to require church leaders to function as match-makers linking people of similar callings together for support, encouragement, and equipping, rather than imposing their pastoral calling upon all of the sheep.

It also means seeing local businesses, clinics, schools, parks, and studios as discipleship outposts of the church. Consider my friend Walter in Phoenix. Walter works in real estate development, and his heart is to help young Christians who are called into the marketplace to engage their work with Christ. He’s created opportunities over the years to mentor younger business leaders in his office. Walter’s business is a discipleship outpost.

As church leaders, our role should be to visit Walter at his business to encourage him and see how we might equip him to do his work better. This is 180 degrees from what most churches try to do--which is to get people like Walter out of their offices and into the church facilities with more regularity to support its programming. Again, its the difference between Church³⁶⁵ and Church⁵².”

I met Skye Jethani at this year’s Q Gathering in Portland, where we talked about his previous book (The Divine Commodity – one of the best books I read this year) and his new book (With: Reimagining The Way You Relate To God). His presentation at Q was my favorite (and that’s saying something, since this event was packed with excellent presentations). Check out his musings at SkyJethani.com.

Waste Land: A Story of Redemption

2011-09-30T08:09:00.000-04:00

As artists engage in the four chapters of the biblical narrative (Creation-Fall-Redemption-Restoration), they offer insight into the character of God in light of the way the world is meant to be. In my last two posts (about Banksy and Derek Webb), I looked at artistic depictions that are creative and also expose the fall, now we will look at the way art can offer glimpses of redemption and restoration.

An artist that exemplifies redemption is Vik Muniz, who specializes in photographing unique physical creations and displaying them as enlarged photographs. Looking at one of Muniz’s photographs from afar, it looks like a regular image or a rendering of a familiar piece of artwork, but when examined up close, one discovers the use of various and surprising mediums, like chocolate syrup, peanut butter and jelly, plastic toy soldiers, and garbage. Muniz takes trash and discarded rubbish and transforms them into something beautiful, exemplifying the act of redemption.

In the movie Waste Land, Vik Muniz takes a journey back to his homeland of Rio De Janeiro in order to meet those who live and work at Jardim Gramacho, the world's biggest garbage landfill.

As his helicopter first flies over the terrain of the landfill, he sees the hundreds of people working like ants, digging through the trash heaps picking out items that can be sold to recycling companies. He assumes that the “pickers” must be savages, filled with bitterness and violence.

What he finds is different.

As Muniz begins to talk with the people, getting to know their stories, he finds that the human spirit to more than just survive but to flourish, to find meaning and hope, is alive and well. There’s Tiaõ, the young, energetic president of the Association of Recycling Pickers of Jardim Gramacho. He has been a picker since he was eleven, and hopes that the fledgling union will grow in influence in order to improve the lives of the pickers. There’s Suelem, a young woman of eighteen who has been working on the garbage heap since she was seven. She has two kids and is pregnant with a third, but she is actually proud of the hard work she does at the landfill, because she has not taken the route of prostitute that she has seen many other pretty young women take.

We watch her go home after a long day of work to the loving embraces of her children. There’s Irma, who loves her role as the landfill’s chef, cooking wonderful meals for the pickers made from the ingredients that she finds amidst the fresher garbage as it arrives at the landfill.
Muniz convinces these pickers that they should let him take photographs of them in order to create his artwork. They understand that Muniz is a world-renowned artist whose artwork sells for incredible amounts of money. Muniz explains to them that by cooperating with him, he will be able to give them and their difficult work the recognition it deserves and that he will donate all the proceeds from his portraits back to the pickers.

Muniz takes portraits of the pickers in different fascinating poses, and then blows up the black-and-white images to the size of the floor of a large warehouse. In the next step of the process, Muniz has the pickers help him fill in the details of the images on the floor with all sorts of discarded trash items that the pickers have saved from the landfill for recycling. There’s old sodapop bottles, toilet seats, plastic bins, traffic cones, shoes, etc., meticulously placed in such a way that the portrait takes shape through the objects. Muriz then takes a high-resolution photograph of the final project, and frames the large portrait for display.

Tiaõ accompanies Muniz to the art auction for the portraits, where the portrait featuring himself follows a piece by Andy Warhol. The final bid for the portrait was $50,000!
As Tiaõ is overwhelmed and weeps and Muniz hugs him, we experience in a very real, cathartic way the pleasure of redemption.
Tiaõ has been recognized for the work he has been doing since he was a little boy, and he now has the money to make his union flourish in order to bring dignity to the work of the pickers back at Jardim Gramacho.

Art can move us to see redemption in real, physical existence. The stuff of art is the stuff of our existence, whether it is paint squeezed out of a tube, or refuse discarded at a giant garbage dump.

When art tells the story of redemption, it is tapping into the truth of the cosmos – that God created this world as it ought to be, that things are broken and not the way it should be, but that something needs to be done about it so that there can be hope for the future. The artist, whether he knows it or not, is retelling the grand narrative of Creation-Fall-Redemption-Restoration, the truth of the gospel found in Jesus Christ revealed in the Scriptures.

Subversive Prophetic Music

2011-09-29T09:07:00.000-04:00

In my last post, I asked, “What would it look like if a new generation of Christians took seriously the task of being subversive prophetic voices in their culture?”

Derek Webb takes a prophetic stand against the homophobia that exists in the evangelical subculture with “What Matters More.”

Webb’s label, INO Records, found the song too scandalous because Webb uses the word “shit” on it, so after much wrangling, Webb and the label agreed to not include it on INO’s release of the album Stockholm Syndrome while Webb could include it on his personal website’s version of the album.
The song is a subversive prophetic voice to those of us who act self-righteous with our words against homosexuality, showing that we have our priorities out of whack about the things that really matter.

If I can tell what's in your heart
By what comes out of your mouth,
Then it sure looks to me like
Being straight is all it's about.
It looks like being hated
For all the wrong things,
Like chasing the wind
While the pendulum swings.
'Cause we can talk and debate
Till we're blue in the face
About the language and tradition
That He's coming to save.
Meanwhile we sit
Just like we don't give a shit
About fifty thousand people
Who are dying today.
Tell me, brother what matters more to you?
Tell me, sister what matters more to you?

Besides being perhaps the first song from a Christian musician to use the word “shit,” this is perhaps the first to rage against the injustice of homophobia.

Of course, Derek Webb is not the first Christian ever to write something using a shocking word for excrement as a device to get our attention. The Apostle Paul, writing about all his past religious credentials, wrote to the Philippians,

“I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as σκύβαλον (skubalon - dung, human excrement, “shit”) in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him” (Philippians 3:8-9).

Sometimes it takes a little rebellious language to get the attention of those who are “religious” while Christ and his Kingdom demand us to change our ways.

Art as Prophetic Subversion

2011-09-28T13:12:00.001-04:00

I have already stated emphatically that art is good simply because it is creative. Art glorifies God simply by being imaginative and original. Art’s value is not based on its instrumentality or on its commercial value. What proceeds below must not serve to undermine this foundational assertion: Good art is good art; it glorifies God “as is.”

Beyond the inherent goodness in art, there are also other ways that art can bring glory to God. Today we will look at how art can be both creative and prophetic. Tomorrow we will see how art can be redemptive and restorative.

Art can be prophetic, creating critical awareness of injustice, brokenness, oppression, and the need for action to alleviate suffering.

“Using the arts to create critical awareness is not new. In the Old Testament Jeremiah, Isaiah, Amos, and other prophets used drama, allegory, and poetry to jolt people and nations into thinking about their lives in the world. Jesus, by his presence and his storytelling, often confused and angered those around him who did not want to recognize their own role in oppressing the poor. He created critical awareness among the poor by causing them to see and act on the new life of freedom that was possible outside the accepted cultural boundaries based on status, wealth, power, religion, gender, and ethnicity.” (Corbitt and Nix-Early, Taking it to the Streets: Using the Arts to Transform Your Community, p. 129)

In the movie, Exit Through the Gift Shop, an eccentric Frenchman Thierry Guetta has an obsession to videotape the secret lives of the most famous street artists as they create their art. Even though he tells the street artists he is making a documentary, he in fact has no ability to do so, he simply collects box after box of unmarked videotapes. In his exploits, Guetta meets many of the most famous street artists in the world, including Space Invader, Shephard Fairey (known for his Andre the Giant stencils and made famous through his colorful Barack Obama posters during the 2008 election) and the most famous and most mysterious street artist of them all, Banksy, whose legendary art mysteriously appears on walls, bridges, and streets throughout the world. All we know of Banksy’s identity is that he is a 30-something male from the Bristol area of England. In the film, Banksy’s face is obscured in black while he wears a hoody as he is speaks to the camera.

Banksy is one of today’s greatest creative geniuses. Most of his art is created through a unique stenciling technique (though he also creates physical props) and these masterpieces are often satirical and subversive, using irreverent dark humor to offer insightful social commentary.
His art has appeared throughout the world, including buildings made derelict by Hurricane Katrina (one painting depicted an old man sitting on a rocking chair waving a small American flag under spray-painted words “No Loitering”), the wall that divides Israel and Palestine (where he created nine provocative paintings depicting escape, freedom, and beauty on an object that represents imprisonment and the ugly reality of political faction), and even Disneyland (where he placed a life-sized replica of a Guantanamo Bay detainee next to a roller coaster). When an art museum commissions Banksy to display his art, the museum is vacated while he secretly comes in and installs his art. One of his most provocative paintings depicts Christ crucified, but instead of being on a cross, his spread arms and hands are carrying shopping bags full of Christmas presents. The street prophet is asking us, “What is Christmas really about today? How has commercialization and commodification usurped the real story of Christ?”

In Exit Through the Gift Shop, Banksy realizes that Thierry Guetta is not really a creative artist capable of making the movie and therefore takes over the direction of the documentary. Flipping the script on Guetta, Banksy suggests to the crazy Frenchman to become a street artist himself, which he excitedly does. Guetta takes the alter ego “Mr. Brainwash” and mass-produces street art for a big debut show in Los Angeles.

Banksy successfully transforms the movie into the story of Thierry Guetta, whose only talent is to copy the art of those he admires for commercial monetary success. “Mr. Brainwash’s” show is a success, as people line up and pay a lot of money for pieces of pop-art that are totally derivative of the true street artists.

Bansky’s film shows, through the character of the shallow Guetta, that not all art is authentically creative. Banksy also exposes the desire in our culture to commodify everything, even art.
So, in the film, we get insight into both the creative and the prophetic aspects of art that glorifies God.
Art is art when it is not derivative, when it is done with authenticity, and when it is not subsumed under the weight of commercialization. This is art that is done by image-bearers reflecting the creative imagination of the Creator.

Art can also be prophetic, as exemplified by the work of Banksy, whose subversive creations speak against injustice and unrighteousness. While the authorities paint over his art because they are classified as “defacing graffiti,” Banksy continues his defiant agitation of the status quo.

What would it look like if a new generation of Christians took seriously the task of being subversive prophetic voices in their culture?

We Need a Vertical and Horizontal Theology of Art and Culture

2011-09-27T15:57:00.001-04:00

In what has been called the “Great Commandment” of Mark 12:28-31 and Matthew 22:34–40, Jesus tells us that we must love the Lord our God and love our neighbors.

Artists that want to be used by God need to embrace both the vertical and horizontal aspects of this love.

Art certainly can be a “vertical” expression our worship of God. We should compose and play music, paint, draw, write, sculpt, photograph, film, etc. objects that directly worship God. Art that celebrates God is very important to the life of the church, for these artistic expressions are capable of moving hearts in ways that didactic teaching rarely does, making disciples through praise and worship. It is one of the primary ways that we fulfill the first of the two-part commandment—we are to love the Lord our God.

But there is a second part to that commandment that many in the evangelical church have missed when it comes to the arts. Not only are we to create art that expresses our love for God, we are to create art that expresses love for neighbor. Art is not just for the praise of God, it is to be an instrument for good to our neighbors.

J. Nathan Corbitt and Vivian Nix-Early correctly state,

“Christian artists should indeed ‘lift holy hands in praise of God’ with their arts in the sanctuary and in their lives, but they should also be challenged and encouraged to give others ‘a cup of water’ in Jesus’ name and put a song in people’s hearts through the arts in the streets outside the sanctuary…Excellent worship demands excellent love and forcefully propels this love out of the sanctuary and into the public square.” (Taking it to the Streets: Using the Arts to Transform Your Community, Baker Books, 2003, pp. 20, 21.

Nicholas Wolterstorff’s book on Art is appropriately titled Art in Action. In it, he states,

“Works of art equip us for action. And the range of actions for which they equip us is very nearly as broad as the range of human action itself…Art—so often thought of as a way of getting out of the world—is man’s way of acting in the world.” (pp. 4, 5)

This week, we will end this series dealing with Christian theology as it relates to popular art and cultural engagement by looking at ways that art can “love neighbors” through being creative, prophetic, redemptive, and through offering hope.

Subversive for the Common Good: Seek the Welfare of the City

2011-09-27T09:39:00.000-04:00

God, through the prophet Jeremiah, not only tells those in the Babylonian exile to live holy lives, he also gives them a calling as they live in the midst of this oppressive empire.

“Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” (Jeremiah 29:7)

As Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat wrote,

“This call is profoundly subversive—right up there with ‘pray for those who persecute you’ (Matt. 5:44)—precisely because it is completely antithetical to all the empire could ask or imagine. The empire wants nothing more than to break the spirit and will of the foreigners in its midst. But with the call to seek the welfare of the empire, the exiles are living out of the vision and hope of Genesis, for the good of the empire itself. This is a call to be God’s people by bringing shalom and healing in places of brokenness and despair. And what could be more broken and more in need of healing than the place of oppression, the heart of the empire?” (Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire (InterVarsity Press, 2004), p. 68).

We who are in the Kingdom of God are called to bear witness to that kingdom within the broken world that we reside by our subversive actions for the common good.
In his first letter, Peter tells us that good deeds are the ultimate witness that Christ is Lord. As the Kingdom of God advances over the dark twisted ways of the fallen world, people will see that God is indeed good.

“Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. ‘Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened.’ But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander” (1 Peter 3:13-16).

Doing what is right and good is simply a practical way of stating the “Great Commandment” of Mark 12:28-31 and Matthew 22:34–40, where Jesus tells us that we must love the Lord our God and love our neighbors. How can we create cultural artifacts that are for the common good, that act as leaven in the world, transforming it from the inside out?
Next: A Horizontal and Vertical Theology of Cultural Engagement

Christian Faithful Presence in the Culture

2011-09-26T13:09:00.001-04:00

For the past month, I’ve been exploring a proper Christian engagement with popular cultural art. If Art is to be “Missional,” then artists must take seriously that the kingdom their work can act like yeast that is mixed into the culture (Matthew 13:33). In my last post, I quoted Al Wolters saying that the gospel is a leavening influence in human life wherever it is lived, which “makes possible renewal of each creational area from within, not without.”

James Davison Hunter, in his influential book, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World, calls this “Faithful Presence.”

Christians are called to be “fully present and committed in their spheres of social influence, whatever they may be: their families, neighborhoods, voluntary activities, and places of work…to create conditions in the structures of social life we inhabit that are conducive to the flourishing of all.” (p. 247)

This “flourishing” is the Shalom that I spoke of earlier, the way things are meant to be – “the webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight” (as Plantinga says in his book).

Hunter says,

“Faithful presence in our spheres of influence does not imply passive conformity to the established structures. Rather, within the dialectic between affirmation and antithesis, faithful presence means a constructive resistance that seeks new patterns of social organizations that challenge, undermine, and otherwise diminish oppression, injustice, enmity, and corruption and, in turn, encourage harmony, faithfulness and abundance, wholeness, beauty, joy, security, and well-being.” (pp. 247-8.)

What Hunter is advocating is for Christians, through their vocations, to act in subversive ways in order to bring God’s kingdom to bear upon the fallen world, “for he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:12-13).

NEXT: “Faithful Presence” as Subversive Art within the Empire of Oppression

Structure and Direction: A Better Paradigm for Cultural Engagement

2011-09-16T14:37:00.001-04:00

There is a superior way to deal with culture rather than the pietistic path of arbitrarily deciding what in the culture is bad and then shunning those things.

Albert Wolters suggests that if we think in terms of the biblical storyline of “Creation, Fall, Redemption,” we will have a better paradigm by which to engage culture.

“Creation” is the way things were originally created, “very good” in God’s eyes. It is the “structure” that God originally intended, not just for the primordial creation, but also the latent potential embedded in the creation from the beginning which enables humanity to create new technologies and art.

“Fall” and “Redemption” are then the two opposing “directions” that humanity is now engaged in exercising upon this God-ordained structure. Thus, if we think in the paradigm of “Structure and Direction” we will be called not just to shun the things of the Fall, but rather to actively engage in changing the trajectory of those things toward Redemption.

In Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview, Albert Wolters writes,

“This twin emphasis makes a radical difference in the way Christian believers approach reality. Because they believe that creational structure underlies all of reality, they seek and find evidence of lawful constancy in the flux of experience, and of invariant principles amidst a variety of historical events and institutions. Because they confess that a spiritual direction underlies their experience, they see abnormality where others see normality, and possibilities of renewal where others see inevitable distortion. In every situation, they explicitly look for and recognize the presence of creational structure, distinguishing this sharply from the human abuse to which it is subject.” (pp. 88-89)

This paradigm then moves the Christian toward redemptive action. It is not enough to identify that which is good, true and beautiful as opposed to that which is evil, lies and distortion. It is the Christian vocation to intentionally turn that which is in the latter categories toward God’s good intentions.

In Matthew 13:33, Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

Wolters writes,

“We learn for this that the gospel is a leavening influence in human life wherever it is lived, and influence that slowly but steadily brings change from within. The gospel affects government in a specifically political manner, art in a peculiarly aesthetic manner, scholarship in a uniquely theoretical manner, and churches in a distinctly ecclesiological manner. It makes possible renewal of each creational area from within, not without…

Everything in principle can be sanctified and internally renewed—our personal life, our societal relationships, our cultural activities…
What was formed in creation has been historically deformed by sin and must be reformed in Christ.” (p. 90. 91)

A “Missional” attitude for artists and for those who patronize the arts, then, is to be actively reformational: Intentionally seeking to be change agents, changing the direction of God’s good creational structure away from the depravity of the Fall and toward the re-creation of all things in Christ.

Is Your View of Ministry Too Church-Focused?

2011-09-15T13:23:00.001-04:00

In my experience in church ministries, I have found that the pastoral staffs get so caught up in the daily workings of church ministry that we often miss the Kingdom work that we are supposed to be doing. Here’s a quote that drives it home for me:

“Much of the positive Christian influence on me and my seminary friends was through people who thought that God’s most important task is world evangelism and that the most important thing we can do is tell people about Christ, help them become believers, and then teach and train them to be faithful to Christ, to lead and disciple others…

After several years of ministry, a friend of mine refused to stand up in church one morning when I called on everyone to stand as a way of expressing their desire to serve Christ sacrificially as Christ’s servants. He told me afterward that the way I described Christian ministry left out all those folks who were focused on trying to be God’s servants in the workplace and marketplace. I had become so intent on building up the local church, seeing it become strong and healthy and active, that I was apparently implying that’s all that mattered.

My friend got my attention.

I realized I had unconsciously developed a view of the ministry that was too narrow – too church-focused.”

-John Yates, Rector, The Falls Church, speaking at the commencement for Covenant Theological Seminary, St. Louis, MO, May 16, 2008

Everything is Permissible - But Not Everything is Beneficial

2011-09-15T09:17:00.000-04:00

There is a deeper discipleship of discernment that Christ is calling his followers to practice when it comes to patronizing the arts.

It is one that echoes what Paul says in his first letter to the Christians struggling with the ungodly culture of Corinth: “‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be enslaved by anything” (1 Corinthians 6:12).

In other words, we must be careful not to use our freedom to justify becoming bound by those aspects of the culture that tempt us to sin.

Jesus taught, “There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him” (Mark 7:15).

Jesus was not just simply talking about what we eat, but a deeper spiritual truth. He explained to his disciples, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person” (Mark 7:20-23).

The reason for being careful about how we patronize the arts in popular culture is not primarily because of the evil in the art itself, but because of the evil that is already present in our hearts. Any defiling cultural ideas, beliefs, or values found in art do not have the power to warp our hearts and thus defile us. Rather, they can only tap into the evil that may already be there, tempting us to act out of that sinfulness.

The good news, however, is that hearts can be transformed. Hearts that are spiritually mature, that are being shaped by faith and an authentic reliance on the Holy Spirit, have the power not to be twisted in this way.

This is why Paul can tell us that some Christians can, with a clean conscience, take part in some activities while other Christians cannot. “One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another?” (Romans 14:2-4a).

Each Christian must realize that, in his or her own personal devotion to Christ, even though everything is permissible, not everything is beneficial to their personal walk in Christ.

Should We Mindlessly Consume Culture?

2011-09-14T14:34:00.001-04:00

In his excellent book, Culture Making, Andy Crouch’s fourth “posture” that he observes in evangelical Christianity is the current trend of “Consuming Culture.”\

Many of today’s North American Christians watch and listen to what everyone else does, believing that pop culture is simply innocuous entertainment and rarely giving a second thought to what they consume. Crouch says that in his interactions with evangelicals, “they are content to be just like their fellow Americans, or perhaps, driven by a lingering sense of shame at their uncool forebears, just slightly more like their fellow Americans than everyone else.” (p. 89)

A “consumption” mentality affirms the important doctrine of God’s “Common Grace,” but it does not take seriously the balance to this doctrine found in another important doctrine: “The Antithesis.”

We see the antithesis in verses like Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.”
It must not be forgotten that the Kingdom of God is in opposition to the evil reign of Satan, sin, and death. Those yielded to the Lordship of Christ are moving toward conformity to the image of Christ (Romans 8:28-29). But those who are not redeemed in Christ persist in a state that resists God’s will in many ways. “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. ‘For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:14-16).

There is, therefore, an antithesis between the thoughts and affections (and the manifestations of those thoughts and affections—i.e., art) of those who have the Spirit of God and those who are unredeemed. And therefore, the only reason we witness any manifestations of godly thoughts and affections from those that Paul calls “natural” rather than “spiritual” is because of God’s Common Grace. And, as we have said for the past several weeks, as Christians, we need to look closer for these divine sparks in the creations of popular artists. There is a lot more common grace there than Christians have historically been willing to admit.

But we must not assume that all that we see in popular cultural artistic expression is a manifestation of this common grace. While the minds and hearts of the regenerated are being transformed into the image of the Son, Scripture consistently warns us to be careful where we place our affections. The Apostle John wrote, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world” (1 John 2:15-16).

It should be obvious to the mature Christian that much of today’s Entertainment Industry is filled with market-driven, narcissistic ideologies that are counter to God’s Kingdom.

However, many Christians pay no mind to this. While they think that others may be affected negatively, they believe that they are immune to any negative effects and thus consume what the culture produces without much worry, thinking they are mature enough to handle it.

But this is not a sign of maturity, but the opposite, for those who are maturing in Christ intentionally set their minds and hearts on the things of God, not on the ideas and affections of the fallen world (see Colossians 3:1-4).

Copying Culture–Can We Do No Better?

2011-09-13T09:17:00.000-04:00

Yet another way of dealing with Culture, according to Andy Crouch’s analysis in Culture Making, is to “Copy” it. In an attempt to be counter-cultural, “in the world but not of it,” Christians have created their own versions of that which is popular in the culture.

Walk into a Christian bookstore, and one will find Christianized versions of the latest styles of pop music, romance novels, hip t-shirts and fashion accessories, and movies that are meant to be evangelistic and/or safe for the family.

“Plus One” – A Christian Version of the “Boy Band”

Crouch looks at the Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) industry, praising it for its openness to the “common grace” present in current musical forms, but correctly assesses that “the flip side of this openness to form was a nearly puritanical approach to content, illustrated in the widely shared belief that to succeed in the CCM market, a recording had to meet a ‘Jesus quotient’ in its lyrics.” (Crouch, Culture Making, p. 88)

In the March/April 2011 issue of Relevant Magazine, a publication targeted at young adult Christians, an article appeared on page 77 titled, “2011 could be the year when CCM as we know it disappears (except worship music).”

Back in 2001, William Romanowski identified the reason why CCM was doomed to fail:

“If you listen to most contemporary Christian music, you would think that all Christians do is worship and evangelize... (Christians) don’t want to be preached at, but instead want popular music and stories that are fun and entertaining, artistically good and sometimes innovative, but are also concerned with addressing the issues of life with artistic flair.” (William D. Romanowski, Eyes Wide Open: Looking for God in Popular Culture (Brazos Press, 2001), p 29)

Copying artistic styles to merely masquerade them for evangelistic purposes actually demeans the imago Dei in humanity because it says that art cannot be art for art’s sake and still glorify God. It says that art has not value as is; that it must have a pietistic message in order to have value.

Mike Wittmer writes,

“Because we know that this creation is the good gift of God, we are not only permitted but encouraged to enjoy it as is. Unlike those who think that worldly objects are somehow enhanced by stamping Scripture verses on them, Christians who understand the goodness of this world celebrate the freedom to enjoy God’s creation as is…

Consider the arts. Because we know that the ability to draw and paint, write and sing all belong to the goodness of God’s creation, we are able to fully participate in the arts. No one should enjoy a good book, painting, or symphony like a Christian.

We can enjoy every good form of artistic expression—including bluegrass!—even when the art is not making a distinctively Christian point. It’s wonderful to use the arts to creatively spread the gospel. But the point is that even when they do not, even when a piece of art is ‘secular,’ we may still enjoy it as a vital piece of God’s good creation.” (Michael E. Wittmer, Heaven is a Place on Earth: Why Everything You DO Matters to God, pp. 66-67)

Critiquing Culture Only Gets You So Far

2011-09-12T14:21:00.001-04:00

In his excellent book Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (InterVarsity Press, 2008), Andy Crouch helpfully identifies the historical “postures” that evangelicals have had toward artistic popular culture:

(1) Condemning Culture, (2) Critiquing Culture, (3) Copying Culture, and (4) Consuming Culture.

On Friday, I looked at how we have “condemned” culture as our way to interact with popular art. This week, I will look closely at the rest of these postures.

Crouch’s second historical “posture” was found in the neo-evangelicals of the mid-twentieth century. Francis Schaeffer and others encouraged Christians to engage the culture, critiquing philosophy, art, music, and cinema.

This engagement of culture is still alive and well in many Christian ministries, including the one I am a part of, the Coalition for Christian Outreach (CCO). CCO ministries are often centered on “worldview formation” for Christian college students, encouraging them into a lifestyle of deep analysis of culture.
Crouch writes,

“To ‘engage’ the culture became, and is still today, a near-synonym for thinking about the culture. It was assumed…that action would follow from reflection, and transformation would follow from information.”

Crouch does not pull his punch on his critique of ministries such as ours:

“It is perhaps not unfair to say that to this day, evangelicalism, so deeply influenced by the Schaeffers and their protégés, still produce better art critiques than artists.” (Culture Making, p, 87)

This is a fair assessment. I have seen that we can indeed produce mere observers and critics if we are not intentional in moving students into the next step of actively engaging in the creative process of making cultural artifacts (art, music, movies, poetry, websites, etc) as God’s image-bearers.

While a truly neo-Calvinist understanding of “worldview” (from which the CCO’s ministry operates) is more nuanced and holistic than this, it is far too easy to fall into the rut of Enlightenment Anthropology, which sees humanity as primarily a thinking species, succumbing to what Descartes reduced humanity to: thinking beings contained in superfluous bodies.

Ironically, in our zeal to teach people that platonic dualism is wrong, we have unwittingly acted like platonic dualists! James K. A. Smith helps us understand this:

“Such construals of worldview belie an understanding of Christian faith that is dualistic and reductionistic: It reduces Christian faith primarily to a set of ideas, principles, claims, and propositions that are known and believed. The goal is ‘correct’ thinking…But what if our bodies are essential to our identities? Weren’t we created as embodied creatures? What if the core of our identity is located more in the body than the mind?” (Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation, p. 32)

Smith argues that what shapes disciples of Christ is less in the realm of the mind and more in the realm of the heart:

“Being a disciple of Jesus is not primarily a matter of getting the right ideas and doctrines and beliefs into your head in order to guarantee proper behavior; rather, it’s a matter of being the kind of person who loves rightly—who loves God and neighbor and is oriented to the world by the primacy of that love.” (p. 32-33)

Smith’s book is an excellent primer on how to re-orient Christian education so that it shapes what we love rather than merely what we think. What we love is seen in bodily action, what Smith calls “liturgies” that shape our hearts.

In other words, true discipleship is not to just be hearers of the word, but also doers of the word. We are transformed into the image of God’s Son not merely by thinking with a biblical worldview, but by loving what God loves and enjoying a life of doing what he wants done in the world–a life that actually intentionally participates with God in the shaping of culture.

Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey are often the go-to worldview shaping authors in evangelicalism. In Pearcey’s book Total Truth, she writes several chapters on the importance of forming a cognitive Christian worldview. Andy Crouch, however, makes a stunning point:

“For Pearcey, ‘worldview’ and ‘worldview thinking’ are all but synonymous, ‘the heart of worldview thinking lies in its practical and personal application,’ she writes, but the section of her book on that subject, titled ‘What Next? Living it Out,’ takes up 21 pages out of the book’s 480.

On the very last page we find the language of embodiment, in a quote from theologian Lesslie Newbigin: ‘The gospel is not meant to be a disembodied message,’ Newbigin writes, ‘It is meant to be fleshed out in a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it.’” (Culture Making, p. 62)

For Pearcey and for many of us, true discipleship of embodied engagement in the culture is just an afterthought, an endnote to all our worldview thinking. Let it not be so.

When Christians are encouraged to merely think critically of the culture, they are often rendered incapable of “looking closer” and appreciating that God is actually very often already present and active in the culture that they are critiquing.

And when they simplistically see the prevailing culture as the enemy, they are less likely to be a gospel witness within that culture, further marginalizing the gospel message that God wants to reconcile all things back to himself (Colossians 1:15-20).

How should Christians interact with art?

2011-09-09T16:39:00.001-04:00

What is the best, most God-honoring way to be a patron of the arts (not just the “high arts” but also pop culture)?

In the evangelical church, there has been a wide range of attitudes toward popular art.

Andy Crouch, in his excellent book Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling, differentiates four strategies that, by themselves, have failed to have any effect on culture. Any one of these four strategies, when seen as the only possible Christian response to art, become what Crouch calls “postures.” “Our posture is our learned but unconscious default position, our natural stance.”

He contrasts “postures” with “gestures,” bodily motions ranging from embracing to being stand-offish.

“Something similar, it seems to me, has happened at each stage of American Christians’ engagement with culture. Appropriate gestures toward particular cultural goods can become, over time, part of the posture Christians unconsciously adopt toward every cultural situation and setting.” (Culture Making, p. 90)

Crouch helpfully identifies the historical “postures” that evangelicals have had toward artistic popular culture:

Condemning Culture
Critiquing Culture
Copying Culture, and
Consuming Culture.

Some Christians have historically condemned new artistic innovations (especially in popular culture) as ungodly, especially if the art is from the world of mainstream, secular culture. The presumption is that Hollywood, modern art, or the latest musical styles are aligned with the realm of evil and are thus opposed to the Kingdom of God. Since popular culture is from the devil, the only proper posture for the Christian is total abstinence. Crouch writes, “‘Holiness’ for fundamentalists came to be closely associated with negative choices—avoiding cultural activities like dancing or going to the movies.” (p. 85)

While there are some cultural artifacts that deserve this kind of condemnation (pornography or sadistically violent music come to mind) and it is appropriate at times to use this “gesture,” Crouch correctly states that a permanent “posture” of condemnation is not what Christ wants from his followers.

A posture of condemnation is an easy, simplified way of uncritically dealing with the nuances of art by taking the theologically wrong “secular/sacred dualism” approach.

Next Week: Critiquing, Copying, and Consuming Culture.

Finding God in Secular Movies?

2011-09-07T15:55:00.001-04:00

The Apostle Paul makes it clear that God reveals himself in a myriad of ways besides the Bible. “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse” (Romans 1:20).

In his book, Through a Screen Darkly: Looking Closer at Beauty, Truth, and Evil in the Movies, Christianity Today film reviewer Jeffrey Overstreet writes,

“God’s truth is not available solely in Scripture or in the mouths of preachers—it can also be discerned in the way a tree grows or the way a sugar cube absorbs coffee. God may be revealing Himself not just through the charity of a compassionate saint (Dead Man Walking) but also through the shocking evil of a desperate preacher (The Apostle)...Christ’s incarnation teaches us that spiritual things and fleshly things are not separate. The sacred is waiting to be recognized in secular things. Even those artists who don’t believe in God might accidently reflect back to us realities in which we can see God working.” (pp. 55-56, 56-57)

In other words, God is at work outside the sphere of the believing community of the body of Christ. He can, and often does, show himself in the popular art of those who are not believers.

As Craig Detweiler and Barry Taylor write, Christians should learn how to “look closer.”

“We challenge you to ‘look closer,’ to discover the surprising messages God may already be broadcasting through the mass media…Learning to ‘look closer’ will take time; it will take work, it will take patience. But those willing to engage pop culture with eyes wide open may find themselves pleasantly surprised and spiritually energized. The theological term behind learning to look closer is ‘common grace.’ It begins with an appreciation of the creative side of God, the goodness initiated in Genesis that continues through the Spirit’s ongoing work of conscience…Common grace explains why the most spiritual movies are often made by people outside the formal borders of the church.” (A Matrix of Meanings: Finding God in Pop Culture, pp. 16-17)

In chapter 5 of this book, Craig Detweiler goes into detail as to how God speaks in and through the movies of our popular culture.

“Movies teach us (almost) everything about our world that we need to know. Film noir such as The Maltese Falcon reveal the evil hidden in every human heart. Romances such as Say Anything suggest that love is worth waiting for. Science fiction such as the original Planet of the Apes teaches tolerance. Fantasies such as The Lord of the Rings dream of a better world, challenging u to environmental preservation. The Marx Brothers promote laughter in the face of absurdity. Humphrey Bogart offers a code of honor and ethics. Katherine Hepburn demonstrates brains and bravura. Sean Connery models wit, grace, and style. Clint Eastwood communicates the power of silence.” (p. 156)

Detweiler is bold in daring to suggest “that if God can speak to us through the pummeling effects of Raging Bull, then Fight Club, Magnolia, and Dogma might be God’s latest, greatest sermons—but only if we follow the advice of the provocative poster and trailer for American Beauty: “Look closer.” (p. 156)
Is it theologically possible to believe that God is pleased by the artistic endeavors of unbelievers? Richard Mouw believes so. In his excellent book, He Shines in all that’s Fair, he writes,

“When an unbelieving poet makes use of an apt metaphor, or when a foul-mouthed major league outfielder leaps high into the air to make a stunning catch, we can think of God as enjoying the event without necessarily approving of anything in the agents involved – just as we might give high marks to a rhetorical flourish by a politician whose views on public policy we despise.” (p. 37)

Can We Affirm the Good, True and Beautiful in the Art of Unbelievers?

2011-08-24T15:22:00.001-04:00

In the amazing film Amadeus, the Viennese court composer Antonio Salieri becomes spiritually hardened because he cannot understand how God would allow the obviously pagan Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to be so incredibly talented while Salieri flounders as just a mediocre composer. There is a moment where he looks at the sheet music from Mozart and is astonished:

Was Salieri hearing the voice of God through the music of Mozart? Isn’t this impossible, since “those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:8)? Is there not a clear and distinct differentiation between that which we find in the natural, pagan culture and that which we find in the spiritual, redeemed community of the church?

The starting place for answering such questions is found in rejecting the non-biblical presupposition underlying them. We must reject the notion that God is only Lord of the “sacred” spheres of “spiritual” activities and not over every aspect of human life. Rather, we must affirm that God created a good earth, and no matter how much sin has been introduced into this creation, it is still God’s good creation. God created humanity as divine image-bearers, and no matter how depraved the human heart has become or how unjust and against shalom humanity makes the world’s systems, that image of God remains in us. Redemption in Christ is just that: RE-demption, RE-storing, RE-creation of what God originally made. God is not just interested in saving souls, but in reconciling “all things”–that is, everything that he has created—back to himself:

¹⁵The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. ¹⁹For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Colossians 1:15-20, NIV)

According to this passage, the shed blood of Christ on the cross is not merely an atoning sacrifice for the salvation of individual human souls, but the action of the creator God reaching into his creation and proclaiming with a loud voice, “Mine!” (as Abraham Kuyper famously insisted that Jesus proclaims).
Kuyper, in his influential essay on “Common Grace,” wrote,

“[W]e have no right to conceptualize the image of the Mediator in ways other than Scripture presents it. People fall into one-sidedness in the opposite direction if, reflecting on the Christ, they think exclusively of the blood shed in atonement and refuse to take account of the significance of Christ for the body, for the visible world, and for the outcome of world history.

Consider carefully: by taking this tack you run the danger of isolating Christ for your soul and you view life in and for the world as something that exists alongside your Christian religion, not controlled by it. Then the word ‘Christian’ seems appropriate to you only when it concerns certain matters of faith or things directly connected with the faith—your church, missions, and the like—but all the remaining spheres of life fall for you outside the Christ…

This way of thinking results in your living in two distinct circles of thought: in the very circumscribed circle of your soul’s salvation on the one hand, and in the spacious, life-encompassing sphere of the world on the other. Your Christ is at home in the former but not in the latter. From that opposition and false proportionality springs all narrow-mindedness, all inner unreality, if not all sanctimoniousness and powerlessness.” (James D. Bratt, ed., Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), p. 172)

Is it theologically possible to believe that God is pleased by the artistic endeavors of unbelievers? Richard Mouw states that he believes that God enjoys the good, true, and beautiful actions of unbelievers for their own sakes,

“When an unbelieving poet makes use of an apt metaphor, or when a foul-mouthed major league outfielder leaps high into the air to make a stunning catch, we can think of God as enjoying the event without necessarily approving of anything in the agents involved – just as we might give high marks to a rhetorical flourish by a politician whose views on public policy we despise.” (Richard Mouw, He Shines in all that’s Fair, p. 37)

This is what theologians have called “Common Grace.” Wayne Grudem provides this definition: “Common grace is the grace of God by which he gives people innumerable blessings that are not part of salvation. The word common here means something that is common to all people and is not restricted to believers or to the elect only.” (Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 657)

How many of our churches teach their congregations to embrace “Common Grace” as a wonderful gift from God for our good and for his glory?

Art in Action: Toward Shalom

2011-08-23T15:37:00.001-04:00

Wolterstorff’s book on Art is appropriately titled Art in Action. He states, “Works of art equip us for action. And the range of actions for which they equip us is very nearly as broad as the range of human action itself. The purposes of art are the purposes of life. To envisage human existence without art is not to envisage human existence. Art—so often though of as a way of getting gout of the world—is man’s way of acting in the world. Artistically man acts.” (p 4-5)

But to what end? What is the purpose of humanity’s action through art?

The answer is Shalom.

“Shalom—of man dwelling at peace in all relationships: with God, with himself, with his fellows, with nature. Shalom is a peace which is not merely the absence of hostility, though certainly it is that, but a peace which at its highest is enjoyment. To dwell in shalom is to enjoy living before God, to enjoy living in nature, to enjoy living with one’s fellow, to enjoy life with oneself.” (Wolterstorff, p. 75)

Shalomis the purpose of all callings, of all vocations. It is the purpose of art aswell, for art is one of the ways that God brings about a lushness of life thatgoes beyond vulgar utilitarianism, a sin of modern evangelical Christianity.“We have adopted a pietistic-materialistic understanding of man, viewing humanneeds as the need for a saved soul plus the need for food, clothes, andshelter. True shalom is vastly richer than that.” (p. 82)

As Calvin Seerveld writes,“There is nothing worse than baptizing our technocratized hecticness andpoverty of aesthetic life time into a christianized utilitarianism. It is nohelp to understand ‘redeeming the time’ to mean ‘Are you making money at it?’or ‘Is it useful?’” (Rainbows for the Fallen World, 63).

Earthlings Enjoying the Aesthetic Life

2011-08-19T15:56:00.001-04:00

Cavin Seerveld, in his magnificent book, Rainbows for the Fallen World, makes the case that a Christian understanding of aesthetics must not succumb to the heresy of Plato's theory of “Forms.” where the non-material abstract idea of “beauty” is the higher, idealistic spiritual reality while the material world is somehow inferior.

When we talk about art, we are talking about real, physical cultural artifacts – created by and for human beings in the real world, and they are aesthetically important not because they point to some non-material idea but because they are, in fact, material. “Poets are not sorcerers; musicians are not progeny of the legendary Orpheus and his ‘divine’ song. Artistic composition and performance is simply and thoroughly human, no matter how unusual it may seem to the workaday beholder.” (p. 26)

As Nicholas Wolterstorff states,

“Characteristic of many religions and philosophies, characteristic of Christianity at many points throughout history, is a devaluation of the physical side of God’s creation, a devaluation just because of its physicality.” (Art in Action: Toward a Christian Aesthetic (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980), p. 69).

Wolterstorff itemizes several ways that the church has devalued the material creation, from those who hold that “spiritual values” are somehow superior to “material values,” to those who long for a future ideal nonphysical heavenly existence because they believe that a disembodied existence would somehow be superior to our earthly one.

“Every such form of devaluation flies in the face of God’s affirmation of His creation. The sheer physicality or materiality of something is never a legitimate ground for assigning to it a lower value in our lives.” (p. 69)

Human beings, in Wolterstorff’s words, are “earthlings among earthlings” –

“Earthly existence is one of God’s favors to us. When the Christian affirms the goodness of physical creation, he is not just praising its magnificence. He is saying that the physical creation is good for human beings. It serves human fulfillment. Earth is man’s home, the world his dwelling place.” (p. 72)

Human beings, however, are unique among the earthlings. What makes humans “uniquely unique” from the rest of God’s unique creatures is that God has given humanity a vocation and a purpose that is ours and ours alone. In Genesis, we read that God created humanity in the divine image and likeness:

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (Genesis 1:26-28, NIV)

God, the creator of all things, created humanity as one of the earthlings, but this earthling is created in the image of God – which is tied directly with the calling on them to “be fruitful and increase in number, to fill the earth, and subdue it, to rule over the rest of creation as God’s “vice-regents.”

Genesis 2:15 gives us further insight into the vocation of humanity: “The Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.” (NASB)

The task of creating art, then, is yet one of many different manifestations of the human vocation of dominion and cultivation of God’s good creation. Art is one of the ways we can fulfill the creation mandate for humanity to take the raw resources of his good creation and to make something of it. Wolterstorff explains:

“It is not difficult to see how man’s vocation of master, of subduer, of humanizer of the world, of one who imposes order for the sake of benefitting mankind or honoring God, applies to the artist.” (p. 77)

Calvin Seerveld helps us understand this even further:

“Art is work, hard, bodily work that can legitimately be a man or woman’s vocation. We have to get past the idea inherited from pagan Greek society (and often compounded by pietism) that poetry takes less of a man’s energy and presence than work with the hands, or that dance is by definition more sensuous and useless than architecturally planning a barn or singing in the church choir. Art is always the act of a whole man or woman, and no matter what form it takes—colored shapes, pulsing tones, rhymed words, stylized gesture—if it be honestly done, the art embodies heart, soul, mind and strength of the artist as he or she responds knowingly to the world of God around him.” (Rainbows, p. 27)

Seerveld cautions us to not place too much emphasis on art as “beauty,” but rather to think of art as simply another type of vocational work. It is special only in that it has the ability to create metaphor, to work as parable so that we can understand things from a different vantage point. “Art calls to our attention in capital, cursive letters, as it were, what usually flits by in reality as fine print.” (p. 27)

Art is a part of experiencing God’s good life aesthetically. Seerveld identifies the aesthetic life as “the ordinary human activity to be humored and to be merry, to indulge imagining things and to be playful.” (p. 49) Art is the result of humans using their imaginations for human flourishing.

In the New Dictionary of Theology, Seerveld states in his article on “Imagination in Theology,” that “human imagination is the source of metaphorical knowledge and the playfulness so important to anyone’s style of life. Imagination is meant to be an elementary, important, residual moment in everything God’s adopted children do.” (p. 331)

Earthlings enjoying being creative in the material world – this is the calling of the aesthetic life.

“We Had Fun”: Living in the Shalom of the Aesthetic Life

2011-08-12T13:46:00.001-04:00

In our post-modern age, it is time to re-embrace beauty as much as truth and goodness. Beauty is found in the nuance of a painting found in an art museum the unexpected transition in a musical composition, in a tearful and exhilarating moment in a film.

But not only there: beauty is also experienced in a smiles on a bunch of kids’ faces, a gentle breeze against your face, a moment of lying still in the grass.

Calvin Seerveld says,

“If the aesthetic moment is missing in daily active responses to God and neighbor in the world, then that life is shorn of a great praise potential and you are liable to a closed down kind of grim slavery.” (Rainbows for a Fallen World, p. 54)

When the true, the good and the beautiful are combined in the holistic aesthetic life, shalom is the result.
Shalom is the more than “peace.” Cornelius Plantinga helps us understand the fullness of this critical Hebrew concept:

“We call it peace, but it means far more than mere peace of mind or a cease-fire between enemies. In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight…the webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight. Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be.” (Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be, p. 10)

At a local coffee shop, I was talking to an old, dear friend. We were discussing our experience of the Christian life. My friend’s walk has been marked by rigid rules and legalisms, by an emphasis on rational thinking and philosophical apologetics. But in the past few years, he has experienced Christ in refreshing new way: Not through a three-point sermon or a worship and praise service, not by winning the lost or winning an argument with an atheist.

His new experience with Christ is summed up with the simple phrase: “We had fun.”

The “fun” that he hears Jesus pointing him towards is not simply humanistic hedonism, but a joy of being with people and looking for the love of Christ in those relationships, of enjoying the goodness of God in the simple moments of laughs and smiles as well as earnest discussions about trials and tribulations. The “fun” that he is experiencing with Christ is the active God working in, through, and around my friend as he seeks the flourishing, wholeness, and delight of those he knows and comes in contact with (most of whom are not believers in Christ).

Shalom brings an aesthetic fulfillment to life when God declares, “Ahh, that’s the way it is supposed to be. That is what I call fun.”

Embracing the True, the Good, and the Beautiful

2011-08-11T14:52:00.001-04:00

The true, the good, and the beautiful: through the ages, these ideals have been at the heart of what it means to be human.

We seek truth, we need to do that which is good, and we need to experience beauty.

Christians have forever embraced these as various aspects of the glory of God. Jesus, the logos of God, is “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14) and is the personification of truth (John 14:6), and those who follow Jesus will know this truth and be set free (John 8:33) and will then be empowered do the work of truth (John 3:21). God is good (Psalm 100:5) and what he has created is declared by him to be “very good” (Genesis 1:31). All of God’s commands are good (Psalm 119:39). God did good by giving to everyone “rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17), and “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17), “The Lord is good to all and his compassion is over all that he has made” (Ps. 145:9). David sings that the “one thing” that he seeks is “to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord” in the temple (Ps 27:4). Biblical imagery of beauty is found from start to finish – from the garden to the glorious New Jerusalem, from nature to that which man makes, from flocks to people to garments to ornaments and to cities. Truth, Goodness, and Beauty combine to create a synthesis of what it means to be human, enjoying God as a part of his glorious creation.

However, evangelical Christians in the past century have mostly embraced only the true and the good. We have championed truth and done a lot of good. As David Bebbington delineated, among what makes evangelicals distinctive is a high regard for the Bible where truth is found, and a belief that the gospel needs to be expressed in good works.

The embrace of the aesthetic aspect of life has largely been dismissed as superfluous by evangelicals in recent history. Calvin Seerveld issues a stern rebuke:

“If older Christians do not like the secular novels their young people read, cannot stand the songs and films mass-produced to capture and twist the imagination of millions around us, are nonplussed by godless contemporary art, what can they expect if no redemptive, imaginatively rich alternative has been engaged in by Christ’s body for sustained years of work; what can they expect if it hasn’t even started? We must come to understand the unwisdom of having run as far away from plastic art and gritty literature as our sanctified legs can run.” (Rainbows for the Fallen World: Aesthetic Life and Artistic Task, p. 35)

There is a need for evangelicals to embrace again the aesthetic life, but we are uneasy in doing so. We have so become modern, so focused narrowly on the reasonable and the scientifically observable that we no longer experience the world as the pre-moderns once did. Hans Urs von Balthasar identified our problem:

"Beauty is the last thing which the thinking intellect dares to approach, since only it dances as an uncontained splendor around the double constellation of the true and the good and their inseparable relation to one another. Beauty is the disinterested one, without which the ancient world refused to understand itself, a word that both imperceptibly and yet unmistakably has bid farewell to our new world, a world of interests, leaving it to its own avarice and sadness. No more loved or fostered by religion, beauty is lifted from its face as a mask, and its absence exposes features on that face, which threaten to become incomprehensible to man. We no longer dare to believe in beauty and we make of it a mere appearance in order the more easily to dispose of it. Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance.” (Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, Volume 1, Seeing the Form, p. 18)

In our post-modern age, it is time to re-embrace beauty as much as truth and goodness.
Beauty is found in the nuance of a painting found in an art museum, the unexpected transition in a musical composition, in a tearful and exhilarating moment in a film.

But not only there: beauty is also experienced in a smile on a four-year-old’s face, a gentle breeze against your face, a moment of lying still in the grass. As Seerveld writes,

“If the aesthetic moment is missing in daily active responses to God and neighbor in the world, then that life is shorn of a great praise potential and you are liable to a closed down kind of grim slavery.” (Rainbows for the Fallen World, p. 54).

More on integrating faith with art:
Earthlings Enjoying the Aesthetic Life
Art in Action: Toward Shalom
How should Christians interact with art?
Structure and Direction: A Better Paradigm for Cultural Change.
Christian Faithful Presence in the Culture
We Need a Vertical and Horizontal Theology of Art and Culture
Art as Prophetic Subversion

A Response to Rick Perry’s “Response”

2011-08-06T11:01:00.001-04:00

Today, Texas governor Rick Perry (a potential presidential candidate) is holding a prayer rally.

According to the website, Perry believes that

"America is in the midst of a historic crisis. We have been besieged by financial debt, terrorism, and a multitude of natural disasters. The youth of America are in grave peril economically, socially, and, most of all, morally. There are threats emerging within our nation and beyond our borders beyond our power to solve.”

As the governor of his state, Perry organized this prayer rally, or what he is calling a “Solemn Assembly,” because

“As a nation, we must come together, call upon Jesus to guide us through unprecedented struggles, and thank Him for the blessings of freedom we so richly enjoy according to His grace, mercy, and kindness towards us. A historic crisis facing our nation and threatening our future demands a historic response from the church. We must, as a people, return to the faith and hope of our fathers. The ancient paths of great men were blazed in prayer – the humility of the truly great men of history was revealed in their recognition of the power and might of Jesus to save all who call on His great name.”

Perry cites the Prophet Joel as the basis for our nation to come together for this Solemn Assembly:

In Joel chapter two, an ancient Hebrew prophet speaks to a nation in crisis and gives her God’s solution: gather together, repent of their sins, and pray to God to intervene on their behalf. In that day the command was for everyone to stop what they were doing and gather for a sacred assembly to turn to God with all their hearts, "with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning" (Joel 2:12).

Why did God desire fasting, weeping, and mourning – or, to put it differently, contrition and humility – from the people? A "sacred assembly" (Joel 2:15) was a gathering that served a few purposes: first, in gathering, the people were acknowledging that their nation had drifted away from its foundations in morality and faith. Because of this moral decline, the people were not prepared to face the external threats rising up against them: economic, political, and military in nature. God wanted His people to understand that their internal threats (moral decline) were far greater than their external threats (economic crisis and military invasion)…”

What do you think?

Here are some issues to discuss:

1. Is America a “Christian Nation” equivalent to the theocratic nation of ancient Israel?

Is it proper hermeneutics to equate God’s command to the nation of Israel to a present-day command to the nation of the United States of America? Perry’s Rally website says, “We must, as a people, return to the faith and hope of our fathers,” and then cites dates in the 1700s and 1800s when the nation’s leaders would call days for national prayer. Is America the historical equivalent to the theocratic nation of Israel? Or is the current “holy nation” actually Christians who are not confined to any national border (1 Peter 2:9-10)?

2. If the Old Testament prophets are cited as legitimate proclamation of how we are to act as the United States, then should we not be consistent?

If Perry cites Joel as biblical reason for the nation to come together to repent of their sins and pray to God to intervene on our behalf, then what sins does Perry have in mind? If it is appropriate to cite the Prophet Joel as a guide for the United States as a nation, then is it not also appropriate to cite Amos?

⁶ This is what the LORD says:

   “For three sins of Israel,
   even for four, I will not relent.
They sell the innocent for silver,
   and the needy for a pair of sandals.
⁷ They trample on the heads of the poor
   as on the dust of the ground
   and deny justice to the oppressed.
Father and son use the same girl
   and so profane my holy name. (Amos 2:6-7)

As Ron Sider writes in his book Good News and Good Works: A Theology for the Whole Gospel,

“Most of this text denounces economic oppression. Scholars point out that the ‘righteous’ person who is sold for silver or sandals is a poor person with a good legal case, but the rich and powerful bribe the judges and win. Corrupt legal systems result in gross economic injustice. But then the last two lines condemn sexual misconduct (perhaps cult prostitution). God abhors both sexual sin and economic oppression.” (p. 149)

If America is supposed to be a Christian Nation, then what national laws and programs should our government put into place to help the crisis of the poor in our nation? Is Perry defining the “crisis” in America in the terms of the Old Testament Prophets? Is his definition of the crisis consistent with what the Prophets speak of in passages like the one cited above, or in Amos 5:10-12 (“There are those who oppress the innocent and take bribes, and deprive the poor of justice in the courts.”), or Isaiah 10:1-4 (“Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.”)? Does Rick Perry see the sin of our nation as the sin of corporate lobbyists using their wealth and power in order to “frame injustice by statute” (Psalm 94:20)?

3. Is this rally a good thing or a bad thing for our Christian witness?

When a post-Christian nation like the United States see an event like this, does it help or hurt our attempts to proclaim the Gospel of the Kingdom of God (Luke 4:43)? People are already very suspicious of this notion of Christians taking over their lives by force, so how can we proclaim to people the way of Christ that is attractive and transformative (not only individually but also societally) without coming across as seeking to coerce people to a Christian theocracy in America?

National Debt and the Money Spent on War

2011-08-04T08:45:00.000-04:00

The bitter battle this past week over the debt ceiling and how we need to cut spending was nothing short of horrendous. Most of us agree on that.

But here’s what I’m wondering, as a Christian, as one who follows the Prince of Peace:
If we need so desperately to cut spending, then why aren’t we cutting the defense budget?

The Atlantic just published a report on the amount we spend of Defense, and it’s astounding. It’s infuriating.

It’s unchristian.

They write,

“Recent budget trends and the behavior of other countries suggests we're giving the Pentagon too much money.”

Look at this chart:

The Department of Defense’s budget has more than doubled since 2000. This does not include expenses for Homeland Security or the VA. While we hear politicians bicker about spending cuts, we have been fighting two wars that have cost us not only many American lives (4,474 dead in Iraq, 1,689 dead in Afghanistan) but has also cost us an extra $2.68 trillion over the past decade.

I ask you: On what could we have better spent $2,680,000,000,000?

Not only has our military spending gone through the roof based on our previous years, but The Atlantic also reports,

“The United States could substantially cut its defense budget and still spend more money on our military than every country that even plausibly threatens us combined.”

I’m sorry, but this is contrary to all the rhetoric that America is supposed to be a “Christian Nation.”

The D.C. Shore: Reality TV at its Worst

2011-08-02T10:38:00.001-04:00

Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, The Sunday Morning Talk Shows.
They all have succumbed to making our nation’s capital the subject of the worst Reality-TV show on the air. In the age of the 24/7 cable news channels, you’d think we would get at least some good analysis of policy, at least a little bit of balanced, in-depth reporting, a platform for even the slightest bit of honest debate.
Hah.
Every media outlet rarely reports on policy but rather on the personalities and on "who's winning.”
Steven Garber reminds us that Lord Bismarck, the German chancellor of an earlier day, made this wry observation about political life:

“If you want to respect sausage or law, you can’t watch either being made.”

The sausage-making of creating law has become the fodder of the most ridiculous Reality-TV show on the air. Watching congress-people selfishly preen for the cameras while fabricating assertions makes the silliness of The Jersey Shore look tame by comparison.
I think that we, the American people, deserve better from both congress and our news outlets.
We are sick of watching “D.C SHORE.”

What is your church measuring? What does that say about your mission?

2011-07-07T16:18:00.001-04:00

Edgar Schein, Professor of Management at MIT, says that whatever an organization measures becomes its de facto culture.

Churches and ministry organizations write mission statements that are great, but they are only wishful thinking if they have put in place mechanisms to measure their success that are contrary to those lofty mission statements.

For instance,a random mission statement I grabbed from a church on the internet reads,

“Our church seeks to make disciples for our Lord Jesus Christ through Christ-centered worship, Bible-centered spiritual growth, and evangelistic service.”

Okay. That sounds pretty good to me.

How do you measure that?

Here is most pastors’ default measuring tool: Sunday Morning Attendance.

However, if attendance is our primary measuring tool, our mission should actually be changed to this:
“Our church seeks to get as many people to commit to attending on Sunday mornings as possible.”

Period.

Is that a good mission statement? How does that align with God’s mission in the world?

As I’ve said before, The mission God has sent us on is not to attract people into the church. No, the goal is to send people into the culture as incarnational “little versions of Jesus” invading every institution and sphere as God’s instrument for bringing all things under the Lordship of Christ and His Kingdom.

How do you measure that?

Check out my Music Reviews at the Prog Archives Website

2011-07-06T19:00:00.001-04:00

I have my own page over at ProgArchives.com, and as I add reviews, you can find them there.
Reviews so far:
NEAL MORSE Lifeline
EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place
DREAM THEATER Black Clouds & Silver Linings
GAZPACHO Tick Tock
MARILLION size matters
PINEAPPLE THIEF Someone Here is Missing
SPOCK'S BEARD X
IQ Frequency
PETER GABRIEL Up
SPOCK'S BEARD Snow
STAR ONE Victims of the Modern Age
AYREON The Human Equation
NEAL MORSE Testimony
TRANSATLANTIC Bridge Across Forever
TOUCHSTONE Wintercoast
PORCUPINE TREE Deadwing
DREAM THEATER Octavarium
PORCUPINE TREE The Incident
DEVIN TOWNSEND Addicted
ORPHAN PROJECT Spooning Out The Sea
RIVERSIDE Anno Domini High Definition
THE DECEMBERISTS The Hazards of Love
OSI Blood
PENDRAGON Pure
DEEEXPUS Half Way Home
AYREON 01011001
FROST* Milliontown
OSI Free
TRANSATLANTIC The Whirlwind

Who is to Blame for the Secularization of our Culture?

2011-07-06T10:48:00.000-04:00

“Because of their two-realm theory (seeing all things as either “sacred” or “secular”), Christians have themselves to blame for the rapid secularization of the West.

If political, industrial, artistic, and journalistic life, to mention only these areas, are branded as essentially ‘worldly,’ ‘secular,’ and part of the natural domain of ‘creaturely life,’ then is it surprising that Christians have not more effectively stemmed the tide of humanism in our culture?”
-Al Wolters, Creation Regained, p. 54

Why Vocational Ministry is So Important

2011-07-05T11:23:00.001-04:00

“In nothing has the church so lost her hold on reality as in her failure to understand and respect vocation.

She has allowed work and religion to become separate departments, and is astonished to find that, as a result, the secular world of work is turned to purely selfish and destructive ends, and that the greater part of the world’s intelligent workers have become irreligious, or at least, uninterested in religion.”
- Dorothy Sayers, Creed or Chaos, pg 77-78.

C.O.O.L. Day 2011 – “Community Outreach of Love”

2011-06-04T21:01:00.001-04:00

Check this video out - C.O.O.L. Day 2011. Today, about 2,000 Christians infiltrated a neighborhood of Canton and cleaned the streets, painted houses, planted flowers, remodeled porches, and prayed for Christ to be glorified. This is incarnational-missional ministry! My family cleared away a heavily overgrown sidewalk (you'll see Kaira walking down the open walkway we created), planted flowers and shrubs as well as helped paint a house.

June 4, 2011–Community Outreach of Love ( C.O.O.L. )

We Don’t Feel the Pain of War

2011-05-30T11:03:00.001-04:00

According to The Washington Post and their website “Faces of the Fallen,” the United States has lost 6,013 soldiers in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What a tragedy.

In an age of voluntary enlistment in our armed services, a small percentage of American families experience the anxiety of seeing a young man or woman sent off to war. Few feel the awful pain of being told that their 20-year old has died serving his or her country.

In fact, most of us feel no pain at all, with the exception of long security lines at airports. Instead of feeling the pain of war and making personal sacrifices so that America can be at war, Americans are encouraged to live life as if nothing is going on out of the ordinary.

In light of the terrorist attack of 9/11, President George W. Bush’s plea to the American people was to shop. "Get down to Disney World in Florida," he told us. "Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed." I understand Bush’s strategy. He wanted to not allow terrorism to disrupt the American consumer’s way of life.

He never raised taxes to actually pay for these wars. In fact, he cut taxes. His administration made sure we were made aware of terrorism (with those long lines at the airports and the multi-colored terrorist threat warnings), but we were intentionally distanced from the wars themselves.

Americans were asked to “support the troops” (who wouldn’t do that?) which meant that we were to salute their sacrifice for our way of life here in America (and not question why we are fighting these wars). But what that actually happened was this: We ended up pretending that we are really not at war. We never felt the economic hardship of having to pay for these wars. We just went to Disney World. We lived in the “World of Make-Believe.”

Face it: War has become just one of those things we do now. We send our volunteer troops all over the world to fight in battles all the time. The average American does not have a say in the matter. Heck, Congress (the ones that are supposed to represent us) doesn’t even have to declare war (as the Constitution mandates) anymore. A president can simply send our troops into harm’s way with his own authority (as long as he can play politics enough to scare members of congress that they’ll be seen as unpatriotic if they resist).
I propose two ways that we can stop our country from fighting in so many wars:

1. Reinstate the Mandatory Draft. While conscription has proved to have a lot of problems (and thus was halted in 1973), if every American had a stake in our country’s choices about war, I think we’d hold our elected officials more accountable. We wouldn’t have such a complacent attitude about war if it wasn’t just those who volunteered to fight who are in harm’s way, but our own sons and daughters.

2. Mandate that All Wars Are Paid For. I find it fascinating that in all the recent debates about budgets and deficits and spending cuts, our leaders almost always skirt around the issue of paying for our war efforts. We hear the call for “PayGo” legislation, where any spending projects must be paid for with tax increases or cuts in spending in other areas. Why not “PayWar” legislation, where any wars that the President feels we must fight must first be paid for with tax increases and/or cuts in other areas?

The website costofwar.com has a running total of the combined cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here is a screenshot I took today:

We wonder why we are in the financial mess we’re in now. Look at those numbers! Nearly 1.2 Trillion Dollars spent in the last decade.

And remember that these wars are not a part of the national budget. Remember that the American people were never issued a War Tax to pay for these wars. Remember that War Bonds were never issued for our purchase to fund these wars.

We were just asked to continue our merry way, shopping and consuming, playing and pretending that war has no cost.

Oh, but we would occasionally having patriotic services on Memorial Day for the fallen. That’s good, I suppose.

So, my proposal gets at two of the places where Americans would hurt the most if we are ever to go to war: (1) our families and (2) our bank accounts. Unless we begin to feel real pain, we will continue to see more and more faces of the fallen on The Washington Post’s website.

The Christian Life is a Peach, Not an Orange

2011-05-26T11:56:00.001-04:00

How would it revolutionize discipleship, evangelism, and culture-shaping if Christians saw their lives not as oranges (made up of compartmentalized, separate, sealed segments—some important to God and some not) but as peaches (a single fruit, with God at the Core, where all of life is important to God)?

LICC (London Institute for Contemporary Christianity) articulates what I’m trying to do with my ministry perfectly. Thanks to Mark Greene, the Executive Director of LICC for this video:

Better get this right, or else you’ll have to write it on the board!

2011-05-25T19:40:00.001-04:00

Thanks to Steve Bishop for this.

May 21, 2011 - The End of the World?

2011-05-22T15:15:00.001-04:00

Here’s a video I made last night that I showed today in church.

Governmental Political Solutions are Not Ultimate

2011-05-20T14:03:00.001-04:00

One of the reasons I've been participating in the Q Gathering conversation is because this group of Christians embrace all the options for cultural change available to us.

Gabe Lyons

Gabe Lyons helpfully delineates seven channels of culture:

Media
Education
Arts and Entertainment
Business
Government
Social Sector
Church

When people embrace their place in one or more of these culture channels (based on their gifts, passions, education, skills, training, influence, etc), they can then produce major change.

Notice that Government is certainly one of these channels. Notice, also, that Church is another one of the channels. Not the only channel, but one of them. There are a lot of other ways we can bring about change.

I submit that when we place our hopes in only one channel, we do so at our society's peril.

Government is not the end-all cure-all to our societal problems. Our American society has fallen into this belief-system. Many people believe that in order to change our society, we must do so politically. Lots of money, time, and energy goes into attempting to pass laws and elect people that will solve society’s ills. However, when we place our faith in government, I believe that we have edged toward what the Bible calls idolatry.

By the way, I also believe that the Church is not the end-all cure-all to our societal problems. There has been a terrible history of Christians believing that God’s solution to the world’s ills is the institutional church. But this is idolatry as well. The Institutional Church is not Christ nor is it Christ’s Kingdom. An institution does not save the world. The people of God are called to be the witness of Christ and his Kingdom.

Back to my main concern: What I fear is that many people have a religious devotion to Politics. Our faith systems revolve around who people will vote for, what issues will be on the ballot, how we can save the world from the bad guys (the “bad guys” are those of opposing political ideologies).

Politics has its place, and we need people who will understand political issues deeply and be political activists. This is a legitimate cultural channel. I have many friends who reside in D.C. who are on the front line of this battle.

But here’s the rub: When we switch over to believing that our particular political ideology has salvific power, we no longer are being (a) realistic, and (b) honoring the only one who indeed provides salvation.

Huckabee is Gone: Will Republican Politics Find Compassionate Conservativism Again?

2011-05-17T09:32:00.001-04:00

Mike Huckabee announced that he will not pursue the Republican nomination. That’s too bad. As Ross Douthat wrote in his op/ed, “A Requiem for Huckabee,”

“He’ll be missed in the 2012 race, and not just because his absence promises to dramatically reduce the entertainment value of the Republican debates.
He’ll be missed because he embodied a political persuasion that’s common in American life but rare in America’s political class. This worldview mixes cultural conservatism with economic populism: it’s tax-sensitive without being stridently antigovernment, skeptical of Wall Street as well as Washington, and as concerned about immigration, family breakdown and public morals as it is about the debt ceiling.”

Huckabee definitely had his flaws. Sometimes he said things without thinking just to win political points (as when he said that Obama grew up in Kenya and was inculcated with anti-imperialist political ideas by his father and the Mau Mau Revolution, when in fact Obama was born in Hawaii and spent his early years in Indonesia and did not even travel to Kenya, his father’s birthplace, until later in life).

But what Huckabee represented was a unique place in politics: An understanding that compassion for people must trump towing the party line on all things. He appealed to those of us who Douthat calls the “disaffected demographic” – “whose hostility to big government coexists with anxieties about corporate power.”

Salon's David Weigel wrote yesterday in his article, "Huckless: Mike Huckabee's decision marks the end of compassionate conservatism":

"Without Huckabee, this race actually shifts further to the right.

That's because Huckabee is (or was) the last Republican with real national political pull who didn't believe in economic conservative orthodoxy. He believes in an activist government. He favored a smoking ban in Arkansas, and for a while he favored expanding it to all 50 states. He's OK with Michelle Obama running an anti-obesity campaign from the White House. (Bachmann said the first lady was implementing a "nanny state," and most conservative voters agree with her.)

If that seems like a minor spat, it wasn't—it comes out of Huckabee's philosophy about what government should do. In December 2007 and January 2008, he feuded with Rush Limbaugh, who said Huckabee was simply ‘not a conservative’ given his views of what government was good for.”

What we had in Huckabee was someone who found the new Tea Party libertarianism immoral, and that the Republican Party is going in the wrong direction. Weigel shared something that Huckabee said in an interview:

“'The greatest threat to classic Republicanism is not liberalism,' he told reporter Will Mari. 'It's this new brand of libertarianism, which is social liberalism and economic conservatism, but it's a heartless, callous, soulless type of economic conservatism because it says, 'Look, we want to cut taxes and eliminate government. If it means that elderly people don't get their Medicare drugs, so be it. If it means little kids go without education and health care, so be it.'"

In an age when evangelical Christians are caricatured as pro-wealth, pro-big business, pro-war, anti-help for the poor, anti-care for immigrants, anti-government, Mike Huckabee (an ordained Southern Baptist minister) stood out as someone who actually tried to figure out how government could work for the common good… maybe even for Kingdom principles. He didn’t always get it right, but at least he was trying to think above the fray of political rhetoric.

Will there be another?

For and Against:

2011-05-16T23:05:00.001-04:00

For: Cultural conservativism that takes seriously the notion that sometimes change is not always best.
Against: Cultural conservativism that unthinkingly thinks that all things were better "in the good old days" (as if they actually had existed).
For: Economic populism that realizes that corporations do not often pursue the best interest of the common good.
Against: Economic populism that believes that government will do any better.
Against: Rhetoric that demonizes the government, as if it is the greatest evil facing society.
Against: Rhetoric that demonizes business corporations, schools, trade associations, families, churches, or any other social structure needed for a healthy pluralistic society.
For: An economic system where people are free to pursue an abundant life, unencumbered by unjust laws and corporate greed.
For: An economic system where people share their resources for the common good, including a tax code that has those who have more pay more.
Against: An over-reaching government that extends too far into social spheres that are better handled by others (because the government does not have the expertise or locality to solve most of the problems that face us).
For: Universal flourishing of all, what the Bible calls Shalom.

Potential

2011-05-11T08:11:00.001-04:00

The People of God or The Corporation of God?

2011-05-10T08:38:00.000-04:00

I’ve been often troubled by the fallout from the 1886 Supreme Court decision, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, which applied the Fourteenth Amendment to corporations, granting them the right to be recognized as persons.As Skye Jethani writes in his excellent book The Divine Commodity: Discovering a Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity,

“Ironically, the same law that ensured human beings would no longer have legal status as property was used to grant property the legal status of human beings” (p. 90).

Jethani then connects the dots between that decision and how we now emotionally, psychologically, and theologically convey personhood to institutions. Because of branding, we don’t just buy oats, we buy from “a smiling Quaker man;” we don’t just drive a car, we shout, “I love what you do for me, Toyota!” “…as if the carmaker was a benevolent individual and not 300,000 anonymous employees organized into a profit-driven multinational institution. One hundred years of relating to personified corporations has caused a profound shift in the way we live” (p. 91).

Jethani connect the dots all the way to the institutional church, which we have personified like other corporations. We therefore believe we are supposed to have a relationship with the institution of the church rather than the people of the church.

“As such, with all sincerity, we can say, ‘“I love what you do for me, Faith Community!’ The personification of institutions in our culture means the institutional church, rather than the flesh-and-blood people of God, has become the vehicle of God’s mission in the world.”

Thus, we who lead the church as pastors start to believe that our job is to create a corporate brand, a church institution that people will be loyal to, that will have a positive reputation in the community, that our members will invite their friends to.

We develop vision statements, create programs, and we use slick marketing tools (including contemporary logos), all because we believe that the mission of God is to get people to “buy in” with our church, devote themselves to our programs, and in so doing, they will become deeper disciples of Jesus Christ.

But as soon as we start believing that the goal is to sell people warm feelings about the church, then we are way off the mark of God’s true mission for his church. The mission of God is the redemption of His creation. In other words, God is ushering in His Kingdom. The institutional church is not the Kingdom of God, but rather the witnesses to the Kingdom.

Instead of placing the emphasis on marketing the church, the church should be equipping its people to be the witnesses of the Kingdom. It is the “flesh-and-blood people of God” that the Spirit indwells in order to be the incarnational-missional instrument for the Kingdom.

Movie Review: 127 Hours

2011-05-06T16:31:00.001-04:00

127 Hours: Being a Loner is Not All That It’s Cracked Up to Be
see my review at two different websites:
Jesus Creed (Scot McKnight’s Blog)
and
Internet Movie Data Base

Individual Identity and Consumerism

2011-05-06T08:06:00.000-04:00

In his book God for a Secular Society: The Public Relevance of Theology, Jürgen Moltmann gives insight into the catastrophic implications of combining individualism with global marketing.

“Like all other life, human life is shared life, communicated and communicating life, communion in communication. Today the necessary communities which make up human life are threatened from two sides: on the one hand by the stepped-up individualism of modern men and women, and not the other by the global marketing of everything, including relationships.

The global marketing of everything and every service is much more than pure economics. It has become the all-embracing law of life. We have become customers and consumers, whatever else we may be. The market has become the philosophy of life, the world religion.

The marketing of everything destroys community at all levels, because people are weighed up only according to their market value. They are judged by what they can perform or by what they can afford.” (p. 153)

Free Market Capitalism is indeed the new American (and global) religion. So much so that many evangelical Christians cannot any longer differentiate between the teachings of the New Testament and the teachings of the American Political Right, today’s versions of Ayn Rand.

American Christians have been so anti-communist/anti-socialist for so long that we have swung the pendulum too far to the right. Certainly communism and socialism are failed systems because of they went too far in squashing individual freedoms in favor of communitarian ideals. But squashing communitarian needs in favor of individual freedom has its own cost.

As Moltmann writes,

“The society of solitary individuals who do not meddle with each other (is) a society of social frigidity. In this way freedom becomes general. But is it true freedom? No: for a person in not an individual. The distinction is simple, but seldom made.”

He explains that a human is only a human in the context of his or her relationships –

“In the network of relationships, the person becomes the human subject of taking and giving, listening and doing, experiencing and touching, hearing and responding. We approach humanism only when we pass from individualism to personalism.” (p. 156)

Americans’ “rugged individualism” is reaching its breaking point, because it has been coupled with marketing, which is the business of selling individuals the means for finding their personal identity. The way humans are meant to find their identity is in community – with family, neighbors, friends. Now, identity is manufactured and sold to individuals. Identity is defined by your ability to be a consumer.

Moltmann writes,

“In families, neighborhoods and free communities human relationships exist in mutual recognition and acceptance. If the market becomes the dominant power, then relationships if mutual recognition and acceptance come to an end. The self-respect experienced through the recognition gives way to the value assigned by the market…Because we are supposed to ‘fulfil ourselves’ through work and consumption, if we have no work and are poor we lose our won selves.” (p. 162)

Without Equity, We Have No Freedom

2011-05-05T12:22:00.001-04:00

Jürgen Moltmann, in his book God for a Secular Society: The Public Relevance of Theology, writes,

“Without equality there is no free world.
It is in the spirit of early Christianity that we call the truth that all human beings are created free and equal ‘self-evident.’

Equality doesn’t mean collectivism. It means equal conditions for living, and equal chances for living for everyone.

As a social concept, equality means justice. As a humanitarian concept, equality means solidarity. As a Christian concept, equality means love.

Either we shall create a world of social justice, human solidarity, and Christian love, or this world will perish through oppression of people by people, through a-social egotism, and through the destruction of the future in the interests of short-term, present-day profits.” (p. 69)

In a polarized political climate, where any mention of “social justice” or “economic equality” or “human solidarity” are labeled socialist and anti-American, Christians need to stand firm and steer the conversation into a third way – beyond unbridled capitalism on the one hand, and Marixism on the other, toward one that reads the Hebrew Prophets afresh and realizes that God’s plan for humanity is captured by the Hebrew words “shalom” (peace / flourishing among people), “mishpat” (justice between humans and between God and humans), “tsedeq” (righteousness in relationships), and “yasar” (equity).

Review: Transatlantic, The Whirlwind

2011-05-04T11:59:00.001-04:00

An Epic Tale of Apocalyptic Scale
This is a mirror review from Prog Archives: http://www.progarchives.com/Review.asp?id=442708

After a prolonged time since their last collaboration when they made “Bridge Across Forever” in 2001 (one of the best albums of the decade), Prog Rock’s premier super group, Transatlantic, have given us the incredible gift of “The Whirlwind.” This is an epic story both musically and lyrically, a magnum opus with eschatological undertones but with hope in the midst of suffering.

Musically, the sound is distinctively Transatlantic – an intriguing stew that mixes Neal Morse’s (ex-Spock’s Beard and a critically acclaimed solo career) sophisticated themes, catchy melodies, and seamless transitions with the quirkiness of Roine Stolt’s (The Flower Kings) compositional genius. This is old-school Prog, in the vein of Kansas, Pink Floyd, Yes, Genesis, Gentle Giant, King Crimson, with plenty of influence from The Beatles of the late-60s.

You’ll find layers of guitars, both electric and acoustic (Roine Stolt has won plenty of awards for his guitar prowess—having been compared with David Gilmour, Steve Hackett, Steve Howe, and Frank Zappa), lush keyboards (dominated by organ and synth and with flashes of piano by the virtuoso singer/keyboardist Neal Morse), bass guitar that gets perfectly fronted plenty of times (from Pete Trevawas of renowned Neo-Prog band Marillion), and drumming that moves from heavy to delicate and back again with ease from the legendary Mike Portnoy (ex-Dream Theater). There is simply no better rock drummer performing today than Portnoy.

There are plenty of instrumental flourishes on “The Whirlwind,” the highlight being “On the Prowl.” Vocals are shared by Morse, who excellently sings with both emotion (especially on “Rose Colored Glasses”) and intensity (he particularly nailed it on “The Wind Blew Them All Away”), and Stolt, whose vocals are an acquired taste (a taste that I have actually acquired!) and does a wonderful job as well, especially with a mad-scientist sound on “A Man Can Feel.”

This album is meant to be understood as one continuous, 12-part, 78-minute epic composition. In Neal Morse’s normal MO, the opening track includes an “Overture” giving the listener a foretaste of the musical themes that tie the album together. The main Whirlwind theme draws you in instantly, and with that opening track, your appetite is whetted, and you’re ready for the musical journey on which these four men are going to lead you.

Lyrically, the songs are dominated with the Christian worldview of Neal Morse. Morse converted in 2002 and left the band he founded (Spock’s Beard) as well as Transatlantic in order to pursue more strictly Christian themes in his music. Morse’s solo albums have been critically acclaimed for their musical genius, even by those who did not appreciate his Christian lyrics. When Transatlantic announced a reunion, I wondered how much leeway the other band members would give Morse lyrically. The answer is: A lot. The other three seem to respect Morse’s faith enough to allow him to express it in his songs, which speaks highly for Morse and his relationships with these men.

The story that “The Whirlwind” tells is apocalyptic, the story of judgment and turmoil, but also of hope and mercy. In “The Wind Blew Them All Away,” Morse sings,

And in the master's house
They're partyin' down
But there's no resting place
In this prodigal town
But there are some we know
Thought they'd go all the way
But the wind blew them all away

In “Set Us Free,” there is more explicit eschatological overtones and a cry for help:

Look at the people
Tossed in turmoil in the street
Satan like lightning falling down
The ungodly world
Is like a vicious troubled sea
Feels like our ship is sinking down
We have been blinded in our hearts
We want to say
And somewhere inside we know
It's not supposed to be
Come bring this ship
Out of the whirlwind and
Set us free, free, free, free...

The album is very accessible and intriguing through the first eleven songs—telling a story that all can relate to with music that is captivating and cutting-edge musically. It talks of finding meaning in hardship, of justice, and of finding hope for the next life in the midst of all of it. But then comes the final song, the sappy “Dancing with Eternal Glory.” I understand the need to tie up the story with a glimpse of heaven, but this song seems out of place, too cliché, too kitschy. Morse sings,

And you're dancing with eternal glory
Taking a step to another land
You are dancing with eternal glory
This is much more than time and chance
When the giver of life is asking you to dance

This is a bit too cheesy for such an amazing album, too trite. I have simply pretended that the first six minutes of this song does not exist, and skip immediately to the final six minutes where the reprise of the main theme occurs.

Transatlantic has placed themselves in the upper echelon of the great rock supergroups of all time. How good are they? Good enough for me to drive eight hours to Philadelphia to see them live in concert back in April. What a show! After they played this entire album through, they took a break for intermission and then played songs from their first two albums. Before leaving the stage for intermission, a sweaty Mike Portnoy stood next to his drumkit and said, “Well, that was our first song. How’s that for an epic? A 75-minute opening song!”

It is indeed epic, and worthy of many, many listenings.

Hoping for a Post-Pundit, Post-Polarized News Source

2011-05-02T15:41:00.001-04:00

I discussed with college students the other day where they received their news. Some said they got their news from Saturday Night Live, others from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, others from discussions with their parents (who get their news from FOXNews or CNN). When a major news story breaks, they either go to the internet (cnn.com or news.yahoo.com) or tune in to FoxNews or CNN.

I asked if they ever read a newspaper or a newsmagazine. Not one of them did.
I asked adults in my church where they got their news, and most said either FOXNews or CNN. Did they read newspapers or newsmagazines? Few read newspapers on occasion, but hardly any read "Time" or "Newsweek" or another print news source.

When I was growing up, news was on every evening at 6:30, and only from CBS, ABC, and NBC. The three news anchors competed for the viewers’ trust by attempting to be the most accurate and credible. Commentary was in written form in serious news magazines like “Time,” “Newsweek,” and “US News and World Report.”

Now the news is read by big-chested beauty queens on the cable news channels. Commentary is offered on these same cable news channels by partisan pundits with axes to grind.

On FoxNews, ultra-conservative Glenn Beck vilified those that had a different political view from his. On MSNBC, ultra-liberal Keith Olbermann did the same. Thankfully, both shows have been canceled.

Too often I hear Christians taking on the persona of their favorite cable news channel pundit: arrogantly stating a position from presumed authority, refusing to hear the other side of the debate.

Christians should rather take the high road of civility, authentically articulating a view on political and social issues while at the same time being willing to listen to other views.

One of the greatest prophetic gifts the American church can give our culture in the 21st Century is a new way of engaging the issues. A humility that goes beyond the current television vitriol will, I believe, be a witness to the grace of Jesus Christ.

And perhaps, just perhaps, we can influence the culture in such a way that fresh news sources will spring up, a post-pundit, post-polarized way of interacting with one another.

James Davison Hunter, Please Recognize Your Allies

2011-04-27T16:49:00.001-04:00

REVIEW: To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, & Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World by James Davison Hunter

In this book, James Davison Hunter, a respected sociologist, seeks to provide insight into the possibilities for Christians to change culture. As much as this book has been lauded as the most important book on the subject since Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture, with “wide-ranging examples” (as Nicolas Wolterstorff writes in the blurb on the back of the book), what Hunter offers is neither groundbreaking nor particularly insightful.

It’s not that his premise is wrong; in fact, it is fundamentally correct. The problem is that in his attempt to cite examples of Christians attempting to change culture with poor results because of faulty premises, he paints mere caricatures of many of them. And in so doing, Hunter does not recognize that there are Christians that are actually allies in his cause.

It’s as if Hunter thinks he is the only one who understands the Creation Mandate, the Christian call to faithfully be present in every sphere of influence in culture, the need to move beyond individual Christianity and embrace Christian community and cultural networks, the cancerous destruction of Hegelian idealism in modern Christianity, that we need new alternative ways to imagine Christian cultural influence outside of the political venue, and that we must be humble in our participation in what God is accomplishing in His Kingdom.

All of this has been said time and again by everyone from Abraham Kuyper to Albert Wolters to Stanley Hauerwas to Andy Crouch to Gabe Lyons. It’s odd, then, that Hauerwas, Crouch, and Lyons are set directly in Hunter’s sights when he starts naming names of people who do not get what he is saying. And it’s extremely odd that in a book that is supposed to be so all-encompassing that Abraham Kuyper is not mentioned once. Kuyper is arguably the most important Christian theologian on cultural change in the past hundred years, and Hunter doesn’t even attempt to interact with his theology.

Hunter writes,

“When the Word of all flourishing—defined by the love of Christ—becomes flesh in us, in our relations with others, within the tasks we are given, and within our sphere of influence—absence gives way to presence, and the word we speak to each other and to the world becomes authentic and trustworthy. This is the heart of a theology of faithful presence.” (p. 252).

This is absolutely biblical and correct.

In the footnote for this quote, Hunter writes,

“In one sense I am merely restating a classical view of vocation. Given the nature and conditions of the late modern world, the need for a rethinking and restatement of such a theology is of critical importance. Where I seek to build on this is in the institutional implications of this theological tradition” (fn. 22, p 334).

There lies the problem with this book.

Hunter is indeed contributing immensely with To Change the World by looking specifically at the institutional implications of a theology of vocation. He offers plenty of helpful insights into why and how Christians should humbly seek to have “faithful presence” in the culture. There is a lot on offer here in this book.

But what Hunter fails to see is that others (people that he brushes off casually as not getting it, like Gabe Lyons and Andy Crouch) are also building on the same classical theology of vocation.

What Radiohead and Porcupine Tree can Teach Us About Theology

2011-04-18T16:10:00.001-04:00

I am a big fan of early Radiohead. “The Bends” (1995), while accessible to the pop music ear, offered enough innovation that made every song was an adventure. With “OK Computer” (1997), the band hit its zenith by progressing pop music into explorations of soundscapes and unexpected turns of mood.

But then came “Kid A” in 2000, on which Thom Yorke began his eleven-year journey away from pop music and into explorations of abstractness with more emphasis on minimalism, textures, and rhythms with less emphasis on guitar and standard musical structure. The recently released “The King Of Limbs” continues the experiment.

I truly appreciate what Radiohead is attempting to do. My inclinations lean heavily into the progressive rock genre, from which Radiohead obviously was heavily influenced in their early career. Progressive Rock is not “Progressive” unless it is “progressing.” And Radiohead should be applauded for attempting to progress. However, the results have been uneven and sometimes downright unlistenable. In spite of this, Radiohead continues to sell a lot of music – “Kid A” debuted at number one, and “The King of Limbs” is currently selling well.

But why? I think it has to do with the trappings of today’s pop music industry: Celebrity, marketing, and publicity. When “Kid A” was released, Radiohead was marketed as the cool band, the innovative band, the band that “you get, but the others out there are not sophisticated enough to get.”

While Radiohead got all the acclaim (Grammy Awards among many other commendations), there have been a number of other bands in the less-known Progressive Rock genre that have have been innovative while maintaining musical structure and storytelling.

For instance, Porcupine Tree took what Radiohead had started and progressed that by adding heavier guitar riffs, changes in time signatures, mood changes, as well as soundscapes and textures that were exceptionally produced.

Often times, the best of music provides emotional experiences because it is in a language that we understand, but then when it shifts and surprises us, we are taken off-guard and we learn new things, both experientially and cognitively. This is basic pedagogy: Start with something recognizable and accessible, but then introduce new things into the mix, expanding the horizons of learning and experience.

This provides clues for us as we engage the world theologically.

We need to initially connect with people in a language that is accessible, with experiences and ideas and emotions that are commonly experienced, understood, and affecting.

But then we don’t stop there: We progress into areas not expected, building on common emotions and thoughts, but expanding horizons. Progressive Rock is known for its storytelling (both musically and lyrically), for its depth of musicianship (intricately written and played), and its ability to touch the heart as well as the head.

Our theological interactions with people need to reflect this as well.

Faux Fame or Worthy Celebrity?

2011-04-18T08:35:00.000-04:00

In a chapter on celebrity in the excellent book, A Matrix of Meanings: Finding God in Pop Culture by Craig Detweiler and Barry Taylor, the authors focused both on the human need for heroes and the contemporary problem of faux fame.

"Celebrities perform a valuable social and theological function. Celebrities sharpen our ideals, bear our disappointments, and promote our hopes of immortality. The problem does not reside in celebrity itself but in the shifting sands of our criteria for fame. Rather than labeling stars as idols to be resisted, I consider some stars secular saints that deserve to be celebrated, maybe even venerated." (p. 90)

The problem is that we’ve forgotten the original definition of “fame,” which comes from a Latin root roughly translated as “manifest deeds.” (p. 95) Fame was reserved for those who “deserved it.” But most celebrities today are the product of the mass media and publicists. Several years ago, David Boorstin poignantly wrote,

“Shakespeare divided great men into three classes: those born great, those who achieved greatness, those who had greatness thrust upon them. It never occurred to him to mention those who hired public relations experts and press secretaries to make themselves look great.” (The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America, 1961, quoted on p. 95)

Craig Detweiler, a screenwriter and Hollywood insider, talks about his encounter with Paris Hilton.

“I first encountered Paris and her younger sister at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. At virtually every party I waited to enter, the Hiltons arrived with an entourage and immediately were whisked inside, past security, beyond the velvet rope… Was she an actress appearing in one of the films? A jury member handing our awards? No, just a hotel heiress with sufficient funds to retain an effective PR firm.” (p. 105)

But there are indeed celebrities that are worthy of the title.
The authors cite Oprah Winfrey and Bono.

“Bono turned his position as spokesman for U2 into a campaign highlighting third world debt relief… He has met with politicians as diverse as Vladimir Putin, Bill Clinton, Jesse Helms, and Kofi Annan… Yet on The Charlie Rose Show, Bono shunned the label ‘role model,’ believing that his indulgences in alcohol, cigarettes, and profanity disqualify him. But like King David, Bono’s failings are central to his music and his mission. Whether discussing his doubts (‘I Still Haven't Found What I’m Looking For’), shaking his fist at God (‘Wake Up Dead Man’), or taking on the self-important trappings of celebrity (‘God Part 2’), Bono’s imperfections make him much more lovable and human… During an era in which everyone wants to be famous, he’s proven that hard work, generosity, faith, and sincerity can still be celebrated, even in the midst of doubt.” (pp. 121-2)

I interact with young adults just about every day in my college ministry. It seems to me that these young people are more astute to giving fame to those that are worthy of respect. For them, movie stars and musicians are given more status based more on the quality of their art and the integrity of their lives than on how physically attractive they are. However, I’m sure that today’s publicists do a large amount of work to massage the public perception of today’s celebrities.

I think of James Franco, star of 127 Hours, who has been travelling the talk show circuit and has been featured on the cable news channels a lot lately. The main line has been to call him “a modern-day Renaissance Man,” since for the past few years, while pursuing a very successful acting career, he's been attending graduate school at Columbia University, New York University, Brooklyn College and Warren Wilson College and is currently takes classes at Yale University and the Rhode Island School of Design.

The handsome star with a one-sided smile seems to have a lot going for him: looks, a genuine talent for acting, and a eclectic list of outside interests. But is he worthy of all the media attention, or is it all public relations smoke?

Detweiler and Taylor end the chapter by saying,

“May we recover fame—rooted in deeds, tested over time—and imagine a future in which everyone is famous for all the right reasons.” (p. 123)

Amen.

Rush on the Colbert Report

2011-04-17T14:42:00.001-04:00

My favorite question from Stephen Colbert to Rush:

“You’re known for some long songs. Have you ever written a song so epic that by the end of the song you were actually being influenced by yourself from the beginning of the song since it happened so much earlier in your career?”

At the end of the show, as Rush was performing, Colbert put on a sleeping cap, placed a pillow on his desk and said “Good Night!” to the audience. The credits roll as Rush continues to play.

But this clip doesn’t show the punch line:

As The Colbert Report started the next night, there was Rush still playing the same song, and Colbert awakening from his sleep still wearing the same sleeping cap. He rubs his eyes and says, “Hello, and welcome to the Report!”

Love it!

Finding God in Advertising

2011-04-13T17:03:00.001-04:00

In a profound chapter in A Matrix of Meanings: Finding God in Pop Culture, Craig Detweiler and Barry Taylor look at how advertising has shaped contemporary society. The authors offer “Ten Commandments of Advertising,” all of which point to an overarching question that people in this (and every) culture ask: “What is it to be fully human?”

“This is the question that advertising seeks to answer, a question that was one the pursuit of philosophers and theologians. Advertising is an incredibly powerful form of pop culture that influences us on levels far deeper than getting us to choose certain products. Life choices are part of today’s world of advertising and consumption. ‘The glory of God,’ Irenaeus wrote, ‘is human being fully alive.’ In contemporary society, to be fully human is to shop. Advertising offers us ways to be alive, ways to be human.” (p. 84)

Certainly, there are ads that are manipulative and appeal to the baser aspects of human depravity in order to sell products. But advertising, at its best, appeals to our desire to know who we are, to celebrate life, to find meaning in being human.

Sadly, Christianity has for far too long been more interested in appealing to a base desire to be saved from being human, a desire to transcend our humanness and live forever in another place called “heaven” when we die. While that is always a latent desire in us (a need for transcendence, for eternity), what we really desire in a postmodern world is meaning for the life we live right here and now – we need to know what it means to be more human, to be “fully alive.”

So, while pastors preach from pulpits the need to know where you’ll end up when you die and attempting to create meaning in life in trying to get people into heaven in their future, advertising is dealing with knowing where you are in the world around you and what it means to be human right now.

A new Budweiser advertisement shows a split screen storyline of a young man coming home from his military enrollment. The left side shows him packing up, traveling across the world on a plane and then across the country on a bus, and arriving in his hometown. The right side shows the joy of his family and friends preparing a surprise party for his arrival in the barn of his family farm. When the two finally come together, the emotional payoff is tremendous. This is a celebration of life at its finest. Budweiser beer is there to be a part of the celebration. Christianity needs to “re-message” itself as a religion that embraces the joy of God restoring humanity and encourages celebration.

“They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion; they will rejoice in the bounty of the LORD—the grain, the new wine and the oil, the young of the flocks and herds. They will be like a well-watered garden, and they will sorrow no more.” (Jeremiah 31:12)

Review: CULTURE MAKING by Andy Crouch

2011-04-12T08:05:00.000-04:00

Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling by Andy Crouch InterVarsity Press, 2008, 288 pages

Andy Crouch, in his landmark book, Culture Making: Recovering our Creative Calling, makes the case that the essence of humanity is that we are “creative cultivators.” This is rooted in his correct interpretation of the opening chapters of the Bible, where humans are created in the image of God, placed in the garden and given the task to “cultivate” (עָבַד) it (see Genesis 1:26-18 and 2:15)

But Crouch states that culture is not merely “a set of ideas” but rather “primarily a set of tangible goods” (p. 10). “Culture is what we make of the world” (p. 23). Therefore, “the only way to change the culture is to create more of it” (p. 67).

In a book about making culture, Crouch surprises the reader by actually providing a needed corrective to the human quest to change the culture (especially recent Christian articulations to “change the world”) by insisting that while we are indeed “culture makers,” “when we thoughtlessly grasp for the heedless rhetoric of ‘changing the world,’ we expose ourselves to temptation. We find ourselves in a situation similar to Adam and Eve’s in the Garden. ‘You will be like God, knowing good and evil…’ Is there a way to change the world without falling into one of the many traps laid for would-be world changers? If so, it will require us to learn the one thing the language of ‘changing the world’ usually lacks: humility” (p. 201).

“Culture Making,” according to Crouch, must not be about grand strategies to transform the world, for that is too large of a scale for finite and depraved humans to attempt. “The record of human efforts to change the world is mixed, to say the least…And the larger the scale of change we seek, the more mixed the record becomes” (p. 198). Therefore, Crouch advocates that we attempt to create cultural goods that offer positive contributions in smaller scales of time and place. The success of such culture making should be measured not by how influential they are in the larger cultural milieu, but in how they exhibit “integrity”: “We can speak of progress when a certain arena of culture is more whole, more faithful to the world of which it is making something” (p. 54).

Culture makers, therefore, should concentrate on smaller scales of influence, what Crouch calls the “3:12:120” – a close and dedicated small circle of three, a group of people (12) to make the cultural good come into existence, and a network of people (120) that will bring the cultural artifact into use. He states that every cultural innovation “is based on personal relationships and personal commitment. Culture making is hard. It simply doesn’t happen without deep investment of absolutely and relatively small groups of people. In culture making, size matters—in reverse… The almost uncanny thing about culture making is that a small group is enough” (p. 243, italics in original).

Crouch states that culture can be primarily understood as cultural goods or artifacts created by humans made in God’s image. If this is correct, then the question for culture makers is not the haughty one of “Can I change the world?” Rather, the question should be much more humble: “Does this thing that we have created meet the criteria of God’s intentions for his Creation and New Creation?” And, “Can I imagine this cultural artifact making it into the New Jerusalem?”

If God, in his sovereignty, decides to allow our cultural contribution to have an influence across the larger culture, then we thank him for that and pray for his will to be done with it.

College Ministry in a Post-Christian Culture

2011-03-27T11:38:00.001-04:00

Steve Lutz has unveiled the cover for his forthcoming book.

Steve writes,
Here’s what the cover is going for: a brochure-worthy image of a college scene, juxtaposed with the dark abstract tumbleweed in the middle.
I’m no art critic, but I use the metaphor of a tumbleweed in chapter one to illustrate the rootlessness, uncertainty, and spiritual dryness of the college years for many people.
While we’re at it, here’s an endorsement that will likely appear on the back cover, from noted author and missional thinker Alan Hirsch:

At last! A book that interprets the challenges of campus ministry through a distinctly missional lens. No longer can we simply view work among students simply as evangelism…we have to adopt a missionary stance in relation to this increasingly complex task. This is an intensely practical, and theologically substantial, orientation on what it means to do student ministry in 21st Century America. Way to go Steve.
Alan Hirsch
Author of The Forgotten Ways, Untamed, and Right Here, Right Now, among others.

A Kairos Moment for the Church in Japan

2011-03-19T16:13:00.001-04:00

This is a repost a blog post from Joe Handley, the president of ASIAN ACCESS -

12 March 2011 (06:25)

Photo: AP
The last few days have proven to be memorable and horrific. It has been overwhelming to watch the images in Japan. We are called to act to bring the love of Christ to this hurting world. We trust that it will be a special moment for the work of God in Japan.
Yesterday Japan was jolted by the largest earthquake to ever hit this country, creating a tsunami of devastating impact. You've seen the reports of cities around Sendai that have been nearly completely destroyed. Other towns and villages along the sea coast have seen the same horrific condition. At last the last reporting, nearly 1300 people are either lost are killed in the aftermath of this destructive force.

I am with our Asian Access/Japan staff on retreat near Nagano, where another quake (7+) hit early this morning. Everyone is okay, but the quakes certainly gave us pause and concern. We have been praying fervently and are convinced that this is a "kairos" moment for the Church in Japan. This is an historic opportunity for the Church to be the Church and rise up to serve the needs of the country in the name of Christ. We at Asian Access believe that God has called us similar to how Mordecai spoke to Esther centuries ago, "you have been called for such a time as this."
The Lord has uniquely positioned us with one of the largest and broadest networks of churches across the country. We believe the Lord would have us serve as a catalyst to "unite the church" to "extend the transforming power of the Gospel" as our mission statement directs. Interestingly enough, our new VP for Japan, had been planning a luncheon for this retreat to help us look at disaster preparations—on March 12, the day after the earthquake hit! In addition, several of our staff just went through a special course to assist the country in situations just like this one.
So, we are poised and ready to respond and now looks like the kairos moment for the church to rise up and make a difference, and in so doing, see transformation happen on multiple levels (spiritual, physical, social, etc.). We are networking with the church across the nation to mobilize the body of Christ for action and we invite you to join us in this 'kairos" opportunity. Pray for Japan, for the church and for us as we prepare to come alongside the church and other partners to deliver aid and respond with well-prepared teams as the opportunities arise.
In this effort, we have set up a special Japan Tsunami Relief Fund for you to invest (http://asianaccess.org/A2-Japan-Tsunami-Relief-Fund.html). This will provide aid to hard-hit areas, delivered primarily through local churches. There may be no greater opportunity for the Gospel’s advance in Japan than this very hour. In the coming weeks, we'll also inform you of service opportunities, but we need to plan these in cooperation with others to maximize our efforts.

Asian Access missionaries and Japanese pastors in a strategy session planning how we can respond practically. We will first deliver aid through our extensive network of churches, as well as participate personally in relief efforts in cooperation with C.R.A.S.H. (Christian Relief Assistance, Support, and Hope).

Please join us in praying and in giving to help the people of Japan in the midst of this enormous crisis.

For more of our blog posts about the Japan earthquake/tsunami...
Post prayers, questions, concerns, reflections on our special forum: http://go2japan.org/tsunami-forum
To give financially: Send checks marked "Japan Tsunami Relief Fund" to:

Asian Access
P.O. Box 200
San Dimas, CA 91773 USA

Rob Bell: Tapping into the Biggest Issue Facing Evangelicalism Today

2011-03-01T10:23:00.001-05:00

There a lot of issues facing today’s evangelical church – We’ve seen heat over issues like homosexuality, political affiliation, non-hierarchical ecclesiology, postmodern epistemology, and more. But perhaps the biggest issue facing us in the coming years will be the deconstruction of our understanding of Hell. Instead of retreating into “This is a forbidden subject” as many of us do, we need to deal with it frankly and honestly, fixing our eyes squarely on the Scriptures and our hearts with the Spirit of God.

Rob Bell’s new book has caused a firestorm, especially after Justin Taylor wrote a scathing blog post about it in The Gospel Coalition’s website. Taylor wrote his critique based on this video to promote it:

Scot McKnight, a good friend and mentor of mine, wrote this to Sarah Pulliam Bailey at Christianity Today:

Justin may be right about what Rob believes, but if he is wrong then he owes Rob Bell a huge apology. I want to wait to see what Rob Bell says, read it for myself, and see what I think of it. Rob is tapping into what I think is the biggest issue facing evangelicalism today, and this fury shows that it just might be that big of an issue.

The publicity approach of HarperOne worked perfectly. They got huge publicity for a book. They intended to provoke -- and they did it well. I think it is wiser to wait to see the real thing than to rely on publicity's provocations. Justin bit, and so did many of his readers.

I look forward to engaging in a civil discussion about the nature of “Heaven, Hell and the fate of every person who ever lived” (as the subtitle of Bell’s book reads), because in my dealings with young college students this is the BIGGEST ISSUE that keeps them from even approaching a conversation about Jesus Christ.
_

End the Veneer

2011-02-23T14:02:00.001-05:00

Jason Locy and Tim Willard Challenge Us to Live Authentically as We Engage Culture

In their plenary talk and breakout session at this year’s Jubilee Conference, Jason Locy and Tim Willard spoke about a small lumber mill at which the owners take
hundred-year-old barn timber and restore it, revealing beautiful pieces of wood for use in new construction as flooring. The motto of the business is, “We don’t offer perfection but, rather, the beauty of imperfection.” The dings and bruises, when restored, provide character that beautifies the rooms in which they are laid.

This antique wood is different from the stuff you’ll find in the laminate flooring section of Home Depot. That wood is fake - it has a veneer. As Locy explained, “Veneer is a thin coating applied over a surface in order to hide an inferior material; it gives the finished good the appearance of something it is not. When applied to a less-expensive piece of wood (or composite), veneer tricks the eye into thinking the piece is of higher quality.”

A sad result of the Fall is that we all live under a veneer. Instead of living fully as who we are made to be, we coat ourselves and hide behind this veneer, making it difficult to live as we should.

We are trained to live in a veneer through what Locy and Willard called the “Three Languages of Culture.” Celebrity teaches us to live vicariously through others’ more glamorous lives. Consumption teaches us to buy stuff in order to create a fake image of who we want other people to see us as. Technology (progress) continually creates new options to place space between our real selves and the people around us. A downside to Facebook, Twitter, and blogging is that quantity often wins over quality and our identities are too-often relegated to a screen of perceptions. A Facebook status can often be a simple and not-too-deep statement of who we are and what we want out of life, or a marketing veneer to boost our image in the eyes of others. Because of technology, consumerism, and celebrity, “we can be anybody and nobody at the same time.”

We must strip away the veneer to reveal something of true and lasting beauty.

The reason we put on a veneer is because there is something relational that is missing in our lives. The antidote of veneer, therefore, is love, relationships, and abiding in Christ.

We need to be with people, not hiding behind veneers of living vicariously through celebrity, of the faux images of ourselves that are accessed by what we consume, and of hiding behind technological facades.

Would we rather live under a veneer (a faked perfection, hiding the inferior product that lies underneath), or as real wood, with all its dings (all the hardships and failings and frustrations and scars of life) that make each of us unique?

“Our un-veneered lives should speak triumphantly, testifying that there is no need to hide true selves in order to gain acceptance.”

Jason Locy and Tim Willard’s book, Veneer: Living Deeply in a Surface Society is due out in April. Check out their website and blog at endveneer.com.

Are you one of the Next Christians?

2011-02-22T09:16:00.002-05:00

The newest NIV – Overcoming a Sad and Shameful Chapter in Evangelical Harshness

2011-02-21T11:58:00.001-05:00

The newest version of the NIV is coming out. Here is a brief sketch of the NIV’s history, courtesy of Scot McKnight:

The NIV came out in the 70s, it continually was revised, the TNIV came out in 2002, it was blasted uncharitably and became a translation whose reputation had been maligned and had a hard time making a go of it. It’s sad and it’s a shame what its critics said. For me it’s nothing more than a bitter chapter among evangelicals who had more fear than intellect at work. But that’s behind us. Zondervan and the Committee on Bible Translation have worked together to “update” the NIV into the NIV 2011.

Let’s hope the a more charitable (that is, a more grace-filled) response comes from the likes of James Dobson and his crowd of evangelical bullies!

Gabe Lyons and the Needed Change in Our Church Structures

2011-02-17T12:36:00.001-05:00

RJS, over at Jesus Creed (Scot McKnight’s website), asks some VERY important questions in light of what Gabe Lyons has written in his new book, The Next Christians: How a New Generation is Restoring the Faith.
Lyons writes,

“We educate, train, and hire “professional ministers,” placing a higher spiritual value on certain jobs and professions (like direct evangelism and service) and marking others (such as entertainment, academia, and science) as off-limits to orthodox Christians.

There are many practical benefits to this approach, but their are complications as well. For example, everyday Christians can develop and overdependence on formal ministry organizations. What’s more they are conditioned to view their own job as separate from ‘real ministry.’” (p. 109)

Reflecting on these words, RJS muses,

The church needs to empower and prepare Christians to go out into the world. The job of the pastor is not to lead in mission doing the “real work” of the church, but to nurture, disciple, and prepare Christians to go out into the world to do the real work of the church… The real work of the church is done not by the leadership vision attracting large numbers into the church, but by the people of the church sent out into every sphere of society. Back to the questions above… assuming that Lyons is right and there is a shift and transformation taking place within the body of Christ …

How does it reshape the concept of church? How does it reshape the view of the success?

How does it impact the role of the pastor?

Go over to Jesus Creed and weigh in.

Full-Time Vocational Ministry is Not The Pinnacle of Faithfulness

2011-02-09T20:11:00.001-05:00

I remember attending Willow Creek’s Leadership Summit as a seminary student. As a young man excited about a future career as a pastor, I was deeply moved when Bill Hybels presented Matthew 16:18, when after Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Lord proclaimed, “upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it!” Over the huge projection screens, Hybels beamed as he looked out at the crowd gathered that day in South Barrington and confidently stated, “I believe that the center of God’s purpose is the Church.”

Oh, how I was inspired! I chose the right vocation, that of full-time pastoral ministry, because God’s Church is what it’s all about. As I sat in that massive auditorium (the epitome of successful church ministry), I thought about how important the institutional church is with our attractive worship services, classroom Bible studies, and varying programs to meet the needs of many different people. I was grateful to be able to be someone who will be able to lead such an endeavor.

Obviously, the highest calling for someone, so I thought, was full-time vocational ministry (either as a pastor or as a missionary). Why? Because our churches and our ministries are the main things!

But as I’ve discovered over the years, the institutional church is not the main thing. The main thing is the Kingdom of God (see my previous post, where I state that the Church functions for the sake of the Kingdom of God, not the other way around).

What if we really believed that the main thing was something else besides the institutional church? What if it’s not about me (as the pastoral leader) or about our church (our building, our worship service, our programs), or about recruiting people to the high call of overseas missions (since this is seen as the pinnacle of “God’s work”). What if all these things are good things, but are meant to serve a greater thing, that is, the Kingdom of God?

What if God wants to rise up men and women who will yield their entire lives to the Lordship of Jesus and the purposes of His Kingdom? What if these men and women were to see all aspects of their lives as ways to contribute to bringing God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven? What if the pinnacle of doing Kingdom work is being faithful in the callings that ordinary humans are meant to have: Artists, engineers, nurses, educators, designers, homemakers, dads, moms, politicians, lawyers, carpenters, machinists, musicians, software writers, etc.?

I meet a lot of young people who want to be youth pastors or college campus ministers. Why? Because the people that have had the greatest impact on them were youth pastors and campus ministers, and they feel that they want to follow in these people’s footsteps. They have been taught (perhaps overtly but more likely covertly just by being in the presence of someone with these presumptions about ministry) that full-time vocational ministry is the most important, most God-honoring course to take in life.

Here’s a telling barometer for how we’re doing on this (that is, those of us in full-time vocational ministry): What if instead of finding the most satisfaction and joy when someone we have been mentoring and/or discipling says they want to become a missionary or go to seminary, we would find even more satisfaction and joy when we see them fully engaged in following Christ in the life they are called to live?

NEXT: A NEW PARADIGM FOR PASTORAL MINISTRY

Favorite Super Bowl Ad?

2011-02-07T15:39:00.001-05:00

I give a tie to Volkswagen and Best Buy.

This reminds me so much of my two boys running around pretending to be able to manipulate things around them with the Force. A great ad for a dad like me.

Ozzy Osbourne is replaced by Justin Bieber because technology moves so quickly. Well done. And Justin Bieber in a disguise saying “Kinda looks like a girl;” gotta love it.

Which ones did you like?

Dishonorable mention: Teleflora’s totally inappropriate commercial for a family event like the Super Bowl. What was Faith Hill thinking?

Two Dualistic Extremes–From Our Culture and Our Churches

2011-02-03T14:32:00.001-05:00

Searching for Happiness but our Dualism Gets in the Way

David Naugle, in his book Reordered Love, Reordered Lives: Learning the Deep Meaning of Happiness, writes,

“The genius of the Christian faith…is that it does not call upon us to eliminate our love for things on earth out of our love for God in Heaven. (p.21)

The happy life…consists of learning how to love both God supremely and the world in the right way at the very same time. In fact, the world and its resources exist to point us to God and his glory, that we might recognize God in, and love him for, his gifts.” (p. 22)

But this is contrary to what we are taught, both in our culture and in our churches.

In today’s culture, we are taught to love that which gives us pleasure – that happiness is in the party, the relationship, the things we can buy and consume, the entertainment we watch, and the hobbies we spend our spare time doing. As Indie Rock band Hard Fi sing,

Working all the time
Work is such a bind
Got some money to spend
Living for the weekend
When it gets too much
I live for the rush
Got some money to spend
Living for the weekend

The only thing that matters is what we do in the body. There is no spiritual dimension to life, so let’s make money and live for the weekend.

In response to this hedonistic attitude, church leaders have taught us that all that really matters is the soul, the mind, and being spiritual so that we can win the war against the body and this physical world. As the old church song goes,

This world is not my home, I'm just a passing thru,
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue;
The angels beckon me from Heaven's open door,
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.

But both views show a dualistic attitude that actually dilutes our ability to experience true happiness. I’ll let David Naugle explain:

“The worldly mistake is to focus on the physical creation, forfeiting the soul for the body, sacrificing the transcendent for the immanent, and eliminating the sacred from the secular. The mistake the church sometimes makes is to focus on the heavenly Creator forfeiting the body for the soul, sacrificing the immanent for the transcendent, and eliminating the secular from the sacred. At the root of both errors is a common but malicious dualism that separates or eliminates one indispensible realm of reality from the other. As a result of the split, the favored portion receives excessive, if not distorted, attention, and the unfavored portion suffers inappropriate, if not slanderous, neglect.” (p. 23)

What can we do to finally rid ourselves of the dualisms that defeat the purposes of God in our lives and our true happiness?
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Five Year Anniversary of Almost Dying

2011-02-02T12:43:00.000-05:00

Five years ago, I nearly died of a dissection of my ascending aorta. 2006 was a traumatic year for our family and friends. But I am grateful for all of them, and to my God who is good, all the time.

Read about what happened here.

What's one thing that you wish youth pastors knew/did/prepared their students for?

2011-02-01T14:48:00.001-05:00

That’s the question my good friend Joel Daniel Harris asked college ministers at a Youth Pastors gathering today. As a member of the panel he invited to answer that question, I had a lot to say about this subject.

Here’s what I see very often in students that come out of church youth group ministries:
(Thankfully, many youth groups in today’s local churches are increasingly breaking this perception, but more often than not, I still experience as a college pastor that I have to do a lot of deprogramming of students from this mindset.)

These young men and women grew up in the church and have been taught their entire lives that the center of Christian life is the local church. This is what they have been taught: God’s purpose for them as Christians is to be witnesses for Christ in the world, to share the love and grace of Jesus to those around them in order to create opportunities to those in the world to accept Jesus as their savior from the world, assuring them of their place in heaven one day. This world is evil, full of temptation and sinful behavior. This world is passing away; what is eternal is the great and wonderful promise of heaven in the future. In the meantime, God calls each person who receives salvation from this world into the local church, where they will hear the preaching of the Word of God and His message of salvation, where they will gather to worship God, and where they will serve the purposes of Christ’s church – to be the beacon of light in a dark and evil world.

Then there comes this rub: When someone hits 17 years of age, a Junior or Senior in High School, they start to get a competing message from their parents. It sounds like this: We must find a good college for you to attend. You must prepare for a career that will be both fulfilling and will provide a good income for you and your future family. If you want all that the American Dream offers, you must get into the right school and pursue the right career. And, oh, by the way: the more money you make the more you will be able to give to the church and to missionaries. That’s the good news of pursuing your degree! Don’t forget God in this!

But also, there is bad news: Those professors at college are out to steal your faith away. When you are away at college, you must protect yourself from the world – you must get involved in a campus ministry and/or a local church. Don’t let that nasty University teach you the ways of the world. Remember to have your quiet time each day. And ask for opportunities to witness to those on you dorm floor. After you read your Bible in your dorm room, be sure to leave it open on your desk as a testimony for your roommates. Perhaps you will be able to invite some of them into your campus ministry or your church, and save them, as well, from the fallenness of the University.

So I meet students that see their Christian mission while at college to create a Youth-Group-type-of-ministry on campus, something cool that will provide opportunities for them to worship and learn the Bible. Something that will serve as both a shelter from the evil university in which they find themselves, and a place to invite those who are living in the evil world of the university so that they can be saved from this institution of the evil world.

And then I show up in their lives, and we start to talk. I ask them to contemplate a new paradigm. What if the goal of Christianity is not simply to escape the evil of this world (especially that which they teach us here at this university) and to get to heaven when we die? What if the purpose of the church and of Christian fellowship is more than just being a shelter from the evil world, or a place to worship and Bible study, or the mediating place where people can come and meet God so that they too can go to heaven one day?

What if we shake up this notion that the world is a dark and evil place and the church and heaven is the bright and glorious place? What if God loves his creation, so much so that he cares about all that we do, including our studies in college and our careers after we graduate? What if God is more interested in the redemption of all things on earth rather than our escape from all things on earth?

What if the purpose of Christian fellowship and church is to be the united body of Christ, doing what he has always been doing: making all things new? What if he wants us to love Him so much that we intentionally place all things under his Lordship, including our major at college? What if God wants us to glorify him in our career, to see our work as full-time Christian ministry? What if we rid ourselves of the notion that the only Christian ministry happens in the confines of what we have experienced as “church?”

What if God is calling us to see ourselves as participating with Him in bringing redemption to the very sphere of influence in our career that he will be placing us, bringing God’s Kingdom to bear on that?

The Top Twenty Progressive Rock Albums of the Decade

2011-01-31T12:53:00.000-05:00

As most of my readers know, my quirky taste in music runs along the lines of progressive rock, a genre made popular in the 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility” (allmusic).

What I love about Prog Rock is both the musicianship (artists are constantly pushing rock's technical and compositional boundaries) and how the genre joins together the standard song structure of rock/popular music (verse-chorus-verse) with the influence of classical music’s complexity of composition (resulting in longer songs, thematic albums with concepts or storylines, and explorations of melodies that the standard structure limits).

With the rise of Punk and Disco in the late ‘70s, Prog lost its selling power (though established bands like Yes, Genesis, Rush, and Pink Floyd were able to continue). In the ‘80s, there was a revival of the genre with bands like Asia, Marillion, UK, IQ, and Pendragon (with music that is technically called “Neo-Prog”). But MTV had hit it big, and Pop was all the rage (along with Hair Bands!) and as The Buggles sang, “Video Killed the Radio Star.”

In the ‘90s, a real revival of Prog occurred, one that even Grunge could not choke out. This “Third Wave,” was spearheaded by Sweden's The Flower Kings, the UK's Porcupine Tree, the Netherland’s Arjen Anthony Lucassen with his project “Ayreon,” and from the United States, Dream Theater, Spock's Beard, Echolyn, and Proto-Kaw,(a reincarnation of an early lineup of Kansas).

So what were the best albums of the past decade starting in 2000? Here’s my take. Check these albums out; you’ll be glad you did.

20. Spooning Out the Sea, by Orphan Project, 2009
Orphan Project offers a crisp sounding American prog sound (in the vein of Kansas and Spock’s Beard) with deep lyrics of hope and reliance upon the grace of God.
Lyricist and singer Shane Lankford has a lot to say: on OP’s first album he shared how his being an adopted orphan also led to his discovery and embrace of being adopted into God’s family. On this, OP’s second album, he further explores spiritual issues with great, engaging progressive music.

19. Second Life Syndrome, by Riverside, 2005
Riverside is a Polish band that has found fame in that part of the world (they really are “Big in Europe!”). Those of us who love progressive rock that is on the more metal side, but with complex changes in mood and a lot of variety with mellow, Pink Floyd-like sections along with harder Porcupine Tree-like sections, will really enjoy this album. Riverside has toured with both Marillion and Dream Theater, which gives you an indication to both of the quality of their musicianship and the unique style of their music.

18. The Resistance, by Muse, 2009
Muse is not strictly a Prog Rock band, but they certainly have a progressive approach to their music, constantly experimenting to create unique atmospheres with piano and strings, yet never afraid to go bombastic with aggressive guitars and huge anthem choruses. They make pompous and grandiose music cool again (the first time we can say that since the heyday of Emerson, Lake and Palmer!).

17. Half Way Home, by DeeExpus, 2008
Inspired by the music of Porcupine Tree (as evidenced by the song “PTTee",” one of the finest songs you’ll ever hear), songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Andy Ditchfield got together with vocalist Tony Wright to create this amazing album. After the album was created by the incredibly talented Ditchfield, they recruited a band to play on tour. In the words of the band's own publicity "their sound is as eclectic as their influences, drawn from years of listening to such groups and artists as Joe Jackson, Iron Maiden, It Bites, Crash Test Dummies, Rush, Nik Kershaw, Marillion and recently - Porcupine Tree and Spock's Beard". DeeExpus is good. Really good. And that’s not just my opinion, they won Classic Rock Society's “Best New Band” Award.

16. Octavarium, by Dream Theater, 2005
Dream Theater has long been established as the kings of Progressive Metal. I remember the first time my friend Matt took me to a DT concert – I was just amazed at what I was watching. These guys are the most technically amazing musicians I’ve ever seen. It’s downright frightening to think how good each one of them are on their instruments. Dream Theater is a mix of Metal (think Metallica, Queensryche, and Rush) with Progressive (think Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes). Much of DT’s music features extremely complex and fast metal, with sophisticated time signature changes thoughout, which makes for difficult listening to the uninitiated. But with Octavarium, the band focused more on actual songwriting, creating a much more accessible album, with songs that sound like Muse (“Never Enough”) or even U2 (“I Walk Beside You”). But for the diehard Proggers, there is the magnificent 24 minute, eight-parter, “Octavarium”.

15. Deadwing, by Porcupine Tree, 2005 Steven Wilson started Porcupine Tree in the ‘90s with spacey experimental psychedelia reminiscent of Pink Floyd and Tangerine Dream. But Wilson’s music has evolved into making Porcupine Tree the band on the leading edge of modern Progressive Rock, defying genres by blending together numerous ambient, metal and avant-garde styles. Wilson creates and produces soundscapes that are the best in the business. Deadwing is the band’s eighth studio album. The material here varies from shorter airplay-friendly songs like “Shallow” to the 10-minute proggy masterpiece “Arriving Somewhere But Not Here.”

14. Wintercoast, by Touchstone, 2009 This album won the top honor in my best albums that I discovered last year. Touchstone’s music is an awesome juxtaposition of symphonic progressive melodies and soundscapes featuring the angelic, sweet vocals of Kim Seviour with the aggression of guitars and drums that edge toward metal and the masculine vocals of keyboardist and composer Rob Cottingham. This creates a musical journey with twists and turns – sweet melodies followed by heavy rocking, all in the same song. What a fantastic album, for fans of Lacuna Coil and Within Temptation, but also for those who love Genesis, Yes, and Spock’s Beard.

13. Viva La Vida, Or Death and All His Friends, by Coldplay, 2008
Okay, I know that Coldplay are not a Progressive Rock band. But they represent the same kind of mentality toward their music that a good Prog band has: lush atmosphere, a theme that unites the album into a cohesive whole, and experimental explorations of melodies beyond the standard music structure of pop music. How the album opens with an instrumental (“Life in Technicolor”) that blends into an atmospheric piece (“Cemeteries of London”) tells you this is no ordinary pop album. “42,” “Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love,” and “Death and All His Friends” are examples of Proggy song composition – a willingness to switch gears midsong to create a more powerful experience. There are a number of great-selling bands that edge toward prog: the aforementioned Muse and Radiohead are examples, along with Metallica and Mastodon in the Metal genre.

12. Bridge Across Forever, by Transatlantic, 2001
When Americans Neal Morse (keyboards, vocals) of Spock’s Beard and Mike Portnoy (drums) of Dream Theater dreamed of starting a supergroup, they imagined working with some Prog Rock masters from overseas. They recruited Roine Stolt (guitars, vocals) whose band The Flower Kings moved the Yes sound into the 21st Century, and Pete Trewavas (bass) from Marillion, a leader in the new wave of bands in the Genesis sound lineage. Their debut album, SMPTe (2000) was critically applauded. But the second album really shines, as the band became more cohesive and the “epic” songs lived up to the term. Both “Duel with the Devil” and “Stranger in Your Soul” clock in at over 26 minutes, the latter is a masterpiece from the mind and heart of Neal Morse.

11. Addicted, by Devin Townsend Project, 2009
Townsend is the founder of “Extreme Metal / Thrash Metal / Death Metal” band, Strapping Young Lad. I am not a fan of this genre of music, and have little interest in SYL. I find it all so loud and obnoxious. But with his new “The Devin Townsend Project,” he is turning over a new leaf. “I wanted to make a record that was heavy, without being dark or depressing. When I got into metal it was for the energy behind it, but somewhere along the way that energy started getting really negative.” With Addicted, Townsend offers an excellent hard prog rock album, with melody and precision. But the spotlight on this album is the vocals of Anneke van Giesbergen (ex-The Gathering, Ayreon). Her beautiful and haunting voice compliments Townsend’s exceptional vocals perfectly. This album must be heard on top-of-the-line headphones or a high-end home sound system to get the fullness of the production value. Townsend’s ability to add layers upon layers of sounds without muddying the sound is an amazing feat.

10. Free, by OSI, 2006
OSI’s first album, “Office of Strategic Influence” (2003) and their third album, “Blood” (2009) both could have made this list. For some reason, I’ve chosen their second album to represent this impressive body of work. Fans of Dream Theater were put off by OSI’s first album, expecting a DT-like experience, since Kevin Moore was previously the keyboardist with Dream Theater, and the drummer was Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater’s drummer). But this music is very different, being a whole new hybrid of post-metal and electronica. The band is actually led by Moore and Jim Matheos (Fate’s Warning), and they have come up with a new and experimental sound that is unlike anything else out there. To compare OSI with Dream Theater is like comparing apples to oranges.

9. The Whirlwind, by Transatlantic, 2009
After a prolonged time since their last getting together when they made “Bridge Across Forever” in 2001 (see #12 above), Neal Morse, Mike Portnoy, Pete Trewavas, and Roine Stolt gave us the incredible gift of “The Whirlwind.” This is an epic story both musically and lyrically, a magnum opus with eschatological undertones but with hope in the midst of suffering. Transatlantic has placed themselves in the upper echelon of the great rock supergroups of all time. How good are they? Good enough for me to drive eight hours to Philadelphia to see them live in concert back in April. What a show! After they played this entire album through, they took a break for intermission and then played songs from their first two albums. Before leaving the stage for intermission, a sweaty Mike Portnoy stood next to his drumkit and said, “Well, that was our first song. How’s that for an epic? A 75-minute opening song!”

8. Up, by Peter Gabriel, 2002
What can I say? Peter Gabriel is the man! “Up” was his last full album (he contributed several tracks to “Big Blue Ball” (2008) and his latest album, “Scratch My Back” (2010) is a covers album). At over 50 years of age, he shows the rest of his former bandmates in Genesis how it’s still done. He is always “progressive” in that every track is inventive and pushes the boundaries (yet with the incredible knack of keeping us with him with an accessibility that is uncanny). How I wish he would have joined the rest of Genesis for the reunion tour in 2007!

7. The Incident, by Porcupine Tree, 2009
After the disappointing “Fear of a Blank Planet” (2007), I was wondering if I was “Porcupine Treed Out” after having consumed so much of Steven Wilson’s music over the past decade. Therefore, when “The Incident” came out, I had lower expectations than for that previous album, and the first couple listens had me confused as to what Wilson was up to here. Some songs were only a minute and a half long! As soon as I was getting into it, the song would switch to the next track. Then I figured it out: The entire CD is meant to be a single composition, with musical themes repeating here and there throughout the album. Some tracks were indeed set-ups for the next track, and several tracks were meant to be considered together as a single entity. Oh! I get it! And, with that, I was amazed. “The Incident” is evidence of Steven Wilson’s musical genius. And it is also evidence that the iTunes era of downloading single tracks is sad, because this album is meant to be heard in its entirety.

6. Testimony, by Neal Morse, 2003
The first album for Morse after leaving the band he founded, Spock’s Beard, for a more clearly Christian slant, this is a very personal and amazing album, telling the story of his struggle to seek fame and fortune as a musician and getting caught up in the party lifestyle of California rock music. All the while, Jesus was reaching out to him (“Sleeping Jesus”) while he was still feeling the influence of “The Prince of the Power of the Air.” He met his future wife, a devout Christian, and he was moved by the love of Christ found in the small country church near Nashville that she attended. This is an epic, 2-CD testimony of Neal Morse’s conversion, with elements of Kansas, Yes, Genesis, Gentle Giant, Dream Theater, The Beatles, and classical music. This CD has a special place in my heart, I listened to it a lot while recovering from the aortic dissection that nearly took my life in 2006., it was the soundtrack to my worship of God in sparing my life. I told Neal this at an after-concert meet and greet, and he was visibly moved by my testimony about his “Testimony.”

5. Milliontown, by Frost*, 2006
Frost* debuted with one of the most impressive CDs of the decade. In 2004, Jem Godfrey, a multi-talented musician who has made a name for himself in the UK as producer of many top radio hits, decided to try his hand at Progressive Rock. Milliontown is an extremely listenable symphonic progressive rock album. Melodies are the centerpiece, with progressive rock changes in time signatures. For fans of classic Genesis, a must have. There are also shades of latter-day Peter Gabriel.

4. One, by Neal Morse, 2004
This is the quintessential Neal Morse album. “One” tells the sweeping tale of the original union of humanity with God, followed by disastrous separation, but then culminated in a glorious reunion This album features not only the tremendous artistic diversity of Neal Morse (vocals, keys, guitar), but also the superior drumming of Mike Portnoy (formerly of Dream Theater) and the legendary guitar skills of Phil Keaggy (who also sings a duet with Morse on one song). Think of the best of prog legends Pink Floyd, old-school Genesis, Kansas, and Yes, and add in the best of Rich Mullins or Michael W. Smith from the Christian sector, then add the kind of rock-opera feel that Trans-Siberian Orchestra has accomplished with their Christmas albums… and on top of all that, add the pop-music sensibilities and sophistication of The Beatles at their creative height and you are just scratching the surface of what you’ll be hearing. Read my full review here.

3. In Absentia, by Porcupine Tree, 2002
With three albums in the top 20, the band of the decade was Porcupine Tree. They have single-handedly redefined the genre with a mix of ambient atmospheres, catchy melodies and hooks, complex time signatures, aggressive guitar and percussion, and story-telling lyrics. “In Absentia” is PT’s most approachable CD. The opening songs (“Blackest Eyes” and “Trains”) epitomize the PT sound with hints of Radiohead, while “Gravity Eyelids” harkens back to their days when they were called the new Pink Floyd.

2. The Human Equation, by Ayreon, 2004
Along with his side projects Star One, Guilt Machine, Ambeon, and Stream of Passion, Arjen Anthony Lucassen’s primary musical project has been Ayreon, a series of CDs dating back to 1995 with The Final Experiment and ending with 2008’s 01011001. All the albums in the Ayreon catalog have been incredible and worthy of their own place on “Top Albums” lists, but The Human Equation is simply one of the finest albums ever produced. It tells the story of a man in a coma after a car crash, interacting with his emotions after the betrayal he experienced when he caught his best friend kissing his wife. What makes this particular album unique is that each of his emotions is anthropomorphized and given a specific vocalist – eleven vocalists are employed, singing the parts of “Reason,” “Love,” “Pride,” “Agony,” etc. The 2-CD concept album never gets old or tedious because of the eclectic styles that Lucassen is capable of creating. At times, the music reminds you of something from Pink Floyd, then it sounds like Genesis, and then it sounds like a wonderful mix of Yes with Dream Theater. The artists that Lucassen recruited to sing and perform on this album are all amazing, and the his production genius is amazing.

1. Snow, by Spock’s Beard, 2002
Neal Morse’s final album at the helm of the band he founded is a rock opera masterpiece. It’s too bad that he left the band after it’s release; I would loved to have seen this album performed live. Morse went on to a fantastic solo career, while the band went forward with uneven results (understandable, since Neal Morse was the creative force behind the band for its first six albums). Morse is also one of the masterminds behind the Prog supergroup Transatlantic. “Snow” is the story of a young man whose called this nickname due to his pale complexion. Snow leaves his small town for New York, where he discovers his supernatural powers to feel the pain of the people he encounters and the ability to heal them. This is a very moving album – the Christian allegory is real but it is subtle. The music moves effortlessly from the influence of Genesis to Yes to The Beatles to Gentle Giant to Kansas. There are wonderful ballads and hard-edged rockers. There are excursions into magnificent instrumentals that showcase the band's excellence as players (especially Morse, who provides vocals and plays piano and acoustic guitar). This 2-CD concept album moved Morse into the upper-echelon of composers; with this album he developed the ability to create a complex yet cohesive album with repeated themes to tie things together and catchy melodies and hooks for individual songs that are worthy of radio airplay.

Special Honorable Mention:
The new 5.1 Surround Sound and Stereo Masters of the Genesis Catalog (2007). I have long been a fan of this band, especially of their music from when Peter Gabriel was the lead singer (1969-1975) up through 1982 when Phil Collins was lead singer but they remained a leading progressive rock innovator. Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, and Steve Hackett are far too often overlooked in favor of the bigger-than-life frontmen, but they are the heart and soul of this music. These CDs are not just re-mixes, but entire re-masters. To hear old albums like “Nursery Cryme” (1971) brought to new life is just amazing. Wow. Just wow.
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