Art Every Wednesday (12)

A week ago I revealed a deep, dark secret to Andy Patton: I love comics. So, when he asked me to write about the art-form I was reluctant, but wonderful truths and beauty hide in the pages of comics, so here I am.

First, let me extinguish 3 myths about comic books:

1. Comics are only for kids. Like most art, comic books span an array of subject matter, style, and substance. Children love The Amazing Spiderman, because the characters are simple, and the plot is easy to understand, but a great portion of comic art is much to complex, dark, and provocative for children. In movie terms, some comics are G-rated, but some are R-rated.
2. Comics books are taboo. Only weirdos read them. In American culture this view holds some validity, but in other cultures this is not the case. During the Japanese reconstruction after World War II, Japan could not afford to broadcast good radio, or make films. So, publishers began to mass produce comics at low costs. The media stuck. Today, Graphic novels are read by Japanese persons of all walks and stages of life. So, I would argue that professing comic books are strange, reveals a hidden layer of cultural bias and personal superiority.
3. Comics are too simple a medium to produce meaningful cultural insights. As an English education major, and avid reader, I find this entirely untrue. In fact, I think comics can help young learners understand the complex themes found in great literary works. Many people are surprised to discover that some of the most stimulating films of the last few years were based on comic books. Take for example, V for Vendetta, a truthful interpretation of an Alan Moore comic of the same title. Much of the movie's strikingly beautiful dialogue is taken from the pages of the comic, including my favorite quote:

So, who's to say comics aren't literary?

I could spend an entire post explaining why comic books are valid art, but that's not my purpose, so if the last three reasons were insufficient, suspend your disbelief and carry on.

I first realized the significant spiritual relevance of comics while playing digital 20 Questions. The game is simple; you think of a person, place or thing, then the digital 20 questions ball asks you 20 questions, and guesses what you are thinking of. One day I played, and tried to get it to guess Jesus Christ. The ball guessed Superman. I tried again, but the ball guessed batman. Again, Superman, then Batman. I finally gave up.

20 Questions revealed a connection between super heroes and Jesus. Americans love superheroes, they are the stars of the highest grossing summer blockbusters, and DVDs. We love them for their spectacular powers and intellect, but especially for their love. That's the difference between villains and heroes; both have superpowers, but one chooses love, and the other hate. I think the real reason we love superheroes is because they remind us of God. They embody the self-sacrifice of Jesus, and that is their truest strength.

Heroes truly live out Spiderman's uncle's adage, "With great power comes great responsibility." The heroes true super power isn't strength, laser vision, teleportation, or healing. Their true strength is their altruistic spirit. The super hero supernaturally chooses to save and love everyone.

Comic books teach intense enemy-love. The great hero's desire is to save the supervillain from his own insanity. Almost every great superhero struggles with this decision. Take this example; out of vengeance Peter Parker kills the man who killed in his uncle. He forever regrets this decision and never kills another man. Take the end fight scene from Spiderman 1 for example (fast forward to 2:50 into the video):

Spiderman loves the Green Goblin so much, that he follows the Goblin's wishes and never reveals the Goblin's secret to Harry.

Frank Miller, maybe the most prolific comic writer and illustrator of our generation, wrote the Dark Knight graphic novels. His most famous work, Return of the Dark Knight, tells the story of aged, retired Batman, Bruce Wayne. Crime reaches a new high in Gotham, and Wayne is forced out of crime fighting retirement. The climax of the novel is the final showdown between Batman and his arch-nemesis, the Joker. After being released from Arkham Asylum the Joker begins his worst killing rampage, and Batman finds himself in a deep philosophical struggle: should he kill the Joker, and end his stand for the redemption of evil or continue to fight for the redemption of evil doers. In the most potent scene, Batman, with a shaking hand, holds a gun to the Joker's head. He overcomes the temptation to kill and turns to leave the Joker to the police. At that moment, the Joker grabs his hidden pistol and commits suicide to frame Batman.

This story helps us understand 2 more spiritual truths taught in most comics:

1. Evil is predictable and always self-destructs. Ultimately most supervillains die by their own workings. Some parish in murder attempts, others parish after their redemption (attempting to right their wrongs). Moreover, we always know what the villain will do, because evil is terribly boring and simple; they always do what's best for them at all costs.
2. Heroes are hated most by the ones they protect. The X-Men are outcasted by society, yet they protect normal humans day in and day out from evil mutants. Truly, love overcomes hate and fear in comics.

The aforementioned themes only scratch the surface of comics as an art form. They are nonetheless potent. Why do American's love movie based on comics? Because the characters lining the pages of graphic novels are tiny reflections of Jesus Christ himself. Comic book characters willingly lay their lives down for those who despise them, and reveal evil for what it is. They redeem the wealthy and poor, save the righteous and unrighteous, and love the worthy and unworthy.

The comic book art form lends itself beautifully to epic tales of supernatural redemption. I only discussed the most popular American graphic novels (those published by DC, Vertigo, and Marvel). Here are a few great graphic novels outside the superhero genre:

Blankets: This isn't a graphic novel for children, because of its adult themes. It is a challenging piece about a boy's journey through college into adulthood. He leaves his smile super-conservative home to find himself suddenly facing all the temptations of the world. He loses his faith in God, and battles throughout the book with obsession for his girlfriend. This novel reveals the brokenness faced by many college students today, but gives a different to the answer than the gospel.

Maus: This graphic novel, based on a true story, is a challenging read for adolescents and adults alike. It's a beautiful illustration of a Jewish family struggling to survive in Nazi Poland. After years of hiding, and bribing, author Art Spiegelman renders the frightening reality of Auchwitz. This heart breaking series is one of the only graphic novels to win a well-deserved pulitzer prize.

Bone: This playful three-part graphic novel, done in the classic Japanese style anime, is a great choice for children and adults alike. It begins as a simple story, or three goofy characters in a far away world, but eventually turns into a gripping bildungsroman, in which the whole gang takes on a slew of monsters, and evil empire.

Fables: This is a graphic novel for more mature audiences (high school and older). Written in the vain of our favorite superhero comics, Fables is the story of a city in which nursery rhymes come alive, and often with dangerous ferocity. Read as the big bad wolf takes on red riding hood, and watch as the author humanizes some of the most frightening "fable" characters. If you liked Wicked or Son of a Witch then this is a great read.

So head over to Barnes and Noble, find a quiet corner, and plow through a comic that fits your fancy. Take a lesson from our favorite heroes in self-sacrifice, and supernatural love.

Resource graphic novels (asterisks denote adult content): Batman: Year One* (Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli), Return of the Dark Knight* (Frank Miller), The Amazing Spiderman Vol. 1 (Stan Lee and Steve Ditko), The Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1 (Stan Lee and Jack Kirby), and V for Vendetta* (Allan Moore and David Lloyd).

The Fathers Gifts

My thanks to Austin Conner for the following:

I was reading Luke 11:9-10,13 which says, “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; those who seek find; and to those who knock, the door will be opened…If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (NIV). I think this verse gets taken out of context a lot. People read this and use it as a resource, example, and or evidence to think that God will give them whatever they want. But I think we all realize that is untrue because that philosophy is selfish in its nature, and Christianity does not call us to be selfish. What then is this verse trying to get across? Verse 13 explains how God is our Father in heaven. If you think about the nature of a loving father, they for sure want what is best for their children. Loving fathers often do not give their child something if they know it will harm them; they might also withhold something from their children because they know it will be better for them in the long run. God is our Father. We were created to worship Him and we are happiest and fulfilled when we let Him rule over our lives. When we let God rule over our lives, I think there is a want for our desires to become more like God's desires. We want God to take out our own selfish desires and replace them with what He wants. For this to happen, we have to humble ourselves and admit that we have such selfish, deceitful, wicked, and evil desires within us, and that we need something greater than ourselves (God) to take out those desires for us. For us to want God to do this means that we put all our reliance on Him to provide for our needs. This takes an ENORMOUS amount of faith in the person of God himself...and that is exactly what He wants from us. So connecting all that back to the verse--once we have faith solely on Christ and see our need for Christ, God will not let us down. When we ask God in humility and empty handed, it will be given to us. When we seek, we will find. When we knock, the door will be opened. Not so that we can get all our selfish desires met, but so that God may be glorified.

Global Mind: Cedar Rapids Flooding

Over 4th of July weekend 30 students from Veritas went to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to help out with flood relief. I was excited for the trip, but the impact it had on us and on the people we met up there was more than I could have thought or asked for. Parts of the city are absolutely devastated, but amid all the disaster we saw so many things to be thankful for.

Day One:
When we arrived we got a short orientation on the hazards of working in a flood zone and how to use all the supplies we would need, then immediately dived into work. We went to Dave and Starla Smiths home. Dave and Starla had been working on rebuilding since they were able to return to their home after the flood waters receded, and a lot of the nasty work was already done. The guts of their house were pulled out and separated into piles on the street. I heard that in the first week after the flood those piles were higher than the cars and every direction you looked in the worst affected neighborhoods the streets looked like they were lined with trash walls. Within a minute of our arrival one of the Smith’s neighbors walked out and met some people from our group and got around to asking if we could gut her house while we were in the neighborhood. We had lots of people eager to do something, so we agreed. The rest of the afternoon we worked in the two houses across the street from one another, pulling down drywall, insulation, and the accumulated possessions of the two homes and shoveling them into trash bins to be thrown on the curb.


Around dinner time we packed up, said our goodbyes and went back to the car dealership where we were staying. Karen Mickey, a former member of The Crossing who lives in Cedar Rapids, is the owner of a Volkswagen dealership, which she opened to house our team. That’s the place we came “home” to each night to rest, shower, eat, and spend time together as a team. We were not the only occupants she had opened the dealership to – there was a professional disaster relief organization using the dealership as a warehouse to store their supplies who, after the first day, came to us and let us know that we should feel free to use all of their supplies for whatever we needed free of charge.

Day Two:
Day two brought some nastier work. We went to an area of town known as Czech Village to help clean up some businesses along the main street. When we got there the owner of the businesses, Jon, gave us a crash course in Czech Village history. His love for his community was evident and infectious and helped give us a deeper vision for what we were really doing and the impact that it was having on the surrounding community. Jon’s exuberance and thankfulness overflowed during the two days we spent with him. He was constantly stopping us to thank us, getting us to take pictures with him, and telling us what a great thing we were doing.

During the second half of day two we went to a church in one of the worst affected areas in the city, a neighborhood known as Time Check. The church was so busy helping its congregation that no one helped the church. When we arrived it was basically untouched except that someone had removed the pews. The walls were covered in mold and the building stank. The basement was even worse off. The floor was covered in two inches of black, slick mud. I think we were a little overwhelmed at first, but then put our masks and jumpsuits on and got to work. It was easier to just put our heads down and work and not think about the devastation we were moving through. It was easier to simplify our time there down to a single shovelful of sludge at a time, and not think about how the church would ever rebuild or the long process of recovery for the whole community.

Day Three:
Day three brought the hardest work of the whole trip. We drove 30 minutes out of the city to a house that had not even been entered until we got there. It was in a floodplain within eyeshot of a river and was built on stilts. The people in that little community were used to floods, but this one was worse than anything they had ever seen. Even on 10 feet of stilts the water rose high enough to cover everything but the roof. The smell of rot and mold assaulted us as we opened the door. For the next seven hours we threw Tom and Renee’s (the owners of the house) possessions out of the front door and straight into the dump truck waiting below. The house was too small for the whole team to work in simultaneously, so we had a lot of time to wait outside and talk with Tom and Renee. As their story came out of them it cast what we were doing in a different light. Tom and Renee live on very little. Tom built the house with his own hands, every step of the process from digging the postholes for the stilts by hand to building on each additions paycheck by paycheck. It was a process that had taken them six years and before the flood came all they had left to do was spackle the ceiling in the second room and then at last it would be done. I wonder what it was like, given that he drove every nail himself, to see us tossing his drywall out of his front door, or hear the sounds of banging and kicking coming from inside all day. They told their story over and over to people who would approach them and they cried often, but it wasn’t the sadness of their situation that made them cry. It was the fact that we had come there to help them. They were blown away by it. They didn’t know what to say. Tom told me that before we came he had almost given up on ever entering the house again. He had thought of simply letting the contract on the land expire and moving somewhere else, abandoning the house he had built, but, looking at the inside of his house as we were packing up he said that now they had a chance to return. When we arrived that morning all their possessions were piled in the center of the house, looking as though they had been torn up inside a blender and covered with the same black sludge we had seen in the basement – everything was slick and stinky with it. By the time we left the floor was cleared down to the plywood and the walls were stripped to the studs. All the foul smelling ruins that had become of all their things had been carted to a dumping site. We took a picture together and went home.

Day Four:

The final day most people went back to Czech Village to help them clean up for a rally they were having the following Tuesday, and some people stayed behind at the dealership to clean it up too, but I had the unique privilege of going to Wal-Mart, Home Depot and a number of other stores and spending the money The Crossing sent us up there to distribute ($6,500) to buy gifts for people we helped that weekend. The day before we had put our heads together to brainstorm what would be the best gifts. To Dave and Starla we gave a gift certificate to Sears (Dave runs a small motor business out of his garage and many of his tools were destroyed), a new mattress, as well as money to Wal-Mart for them to use on food and essentials while they put their lives back together. To Jon (who had been so generous with outfitting us out of his own pocket for the supplies we needed to work while we were with him), we gave $1,000 to pay for more supplies that he would need to rebuild. It was just a fraction of the money it is going to take to put the business back together, but it is still something. To the congregation of the church we helped, we gave $50 gift certificates to Wal-Mart to every member of the congregation. Tom and Renee said that what they needed most was money for food and gas, so we gave them $600 to Wal-Mart as well as $300 to Home Depot to pay for a new deep freeze (Tom hunts some of their food and had a freezer full of all the meat they were planning on living on over the winter). When we came back and delivered the gifts, they didn’t know what to say other than "thank you" over and over.

For more on this story, visit the Missourian website.

Art Every Wednesday (11)

I’ll start by saying this: I want not only to see art, but to know it. The point of wandering an art museum is not at all to glance at a painting and declare it “pretty.” I want beauty from my art, and not an easy beauty, but depth and intrigue—beauty that only grows brighter the longer you dwell on it. That kind of beauty takes a commitment and deep understanding of the work, the way marriage requires a sort of love you can’t quite imagine when you turn your head for a pretty girl on the street.

Gustave Courbet’s Burial at Ornans (1850) is an amazing painting, but only if you look closely—only if you commit. This work—which has been called the first “modern” (…more on that later) painting—depicts a commoner’s funeral in the artist’s hometown.

First. People in 1850 hated this painting. Large-scale works were usually reserved for glorious subject matter: Royalty, monumental history, Greek gods, or Christ. That was it. And Burial at Ornans was massive—10 by 22 feet—easily dwarfing other paintings and demanding the attention of the crowd coming to the Salon to see elite Parisian art. But Courbet’s subject matter was – one critic said – “ugly,” just a cluster of peasants clustered around the burial of one of their own. Somehow Courbet slipped into the Salon—the pinnacle of academic painting, where all the rigors of style and form and content were celebrated—a work which featured peasants, implied clerical corruption, and put an unremarkable event on a grand, royal scale.

Where does your eye go first? Maybe to the cluster of clergy, who each wear a uniquely irreverent expression. They are either bored, like the two boys, or seem automated and disconnected, like the priest, or leery, like the man holding the cross and the two cardinals. There’s also the herd of women moving right, and actually seem to be leaving the funeral in the middle of the eulogy. Even the dog catches your attention, with its white coat and alert stance—it seems to have perked up at some movement outside our field of vision.

Whatever you notice first, I’d be willing to bet it’s not the grave.

It’s not your fault. Not one of the people in this painting is looking at it, either.

Burial at Ornans trounced on firmly held beliefs about the dead and dying, eluding the glorification and ceremony of death (see El Greco’s The Burial of Count Orgaz, 1586-88, right). It cut through this artistic culture’s tendency to dwell on fantasy, and showed death, just like birth, or eating, or working, as a part of daily life. Courbet paved the way for Realism here, when painters began to insist upon depicting ordinary people, and critics—used to luscious paintings of Greek goddesses or grand, powerful battles on steeds—hated it.

With his technique, Courbet steps outside Academic tradition. Look again at the painting, and see how the figures are crowded into the painting and how flat they seem, almost like cut-out figures, or a frieze. Until this art historical moment, the mark of a well-trained, worthy artist was his perfectly concealed brushstrokes and masterful depiction of deep space (see Jacques-Louis David’s coronation painting of Napoleon Bonaparte, 1805-07). By contrast the paint is loose and rough, almost as if Courbet wants people to see that it’s a farce – paint on canvas, rather than a peek into true reality. After Courbet, more artists – Manet, Cezanne, Monet, Picasso – began to experiment with the medium, breaking away from traditionally accepted subject matter and using color and texture freely, paving the way for what we call Modernism.

Prayer: What, How, Why

Tim Keller: How to Pray, Praying Our Tears
Jerram Barrs: Jesus's Prayer Before His Death, Times of Fasting and Extended Prayer
Luke Miedema: Who is in Charge Here?

UnChristian (4)

This is one of the best analyses of the heart of the current generation of young people that I have come across:

"...Let me describe the contours and complexities of emerging generations.
In many ways, young people perceive the world in very different terms that people ever have before. For example, the lifestyles of [young people] are more diverse than those of their parents' generation, including education, career, family, values, and leisure. Young people do not want to be defined by a "normal" lifestyle. They favor a unique and personal journey. Many young people do not expect to be married or to begin a family as a young adult (if at all), though this may have been the expectation in the past.
For [young people], relationships are the driving force. Being loyal to friends is one of their highest values. They have a strong need to belong, usually to a tribe of other loyal people who know them well and appreciate them. Still, under their relational connectedness lies fierce individualism.
Even thought they esteem fair-mindedness and diversity, they are irreverent and blunt. Finding ways to express themselves and their rage is an endless pursuit. Being skeptical of leaders, products, and institutions is part of their generational coding... They do not trust things that seem too perfect, accepting that life comes with its share of messiness and off-the-wall experiences and people.
Americans of all ages are inundated with media and entertainment options. Yet [young people] consume more hours of media from more sources that do older generations. Many enjoy immensely that latest hot movie, music, website, or pop culture buzz. Technologies connect young people to information and each other - and power their self-expression and creativity - in ways older adults do not fully appreciate.
Young people engage in nearly constant search for fresh experiences and new sources of motivation. They want to try things out themselves, disdaining self-proclaimed experts nad "talking head" presentations. If something doesn't work for them, or if they are not permitted to participate in the process, they quickly move on to something that grabs them. They prefer casual and comfortable to stuffy and stilted. They view life in a nonlinear, chaotic way which means they don't mind contradiction and ambiguity. They may tell someone what that person wants to hear, but then do whatever they desire.
Spirituality is important to young adults, but many consider it just one element of a successful, eclectic life. Fewer than one of out ten young adults mention faith as their top priority, despite the fact that the vast majority of them attended a Christian church during their high school years. most young people who were involved in a church as a teenager disengage from church life and often from Christianity at some point during early adulthood, creating a deficit of young talent, energy, and leadership in many congregations."
(emphasis mine.)

Art Every Wednesday (10)

In 1994 Trent Reznor recorded the song "Hurt," and in 2002 Johnny Cash covered it. The differences in the two versions of the same song are powerful. Both songs (and music videos) stand as a testament to the power of art. Watch for the differences in images in the videos and the changes Cash makes to the lyrics of the song. As in all art, the artists worldview comes through unmistakably in these two pieces. There are wonderful things about each, and I'll leave you to find those things for yourselves, but I will say one thing I love about these videos. They are incredibly honest. Reznor's piece is a heartbreaking statement about the sadness and utter pain of life at times. It seems to ask the question "Is there any way out of despair?" suggesting that, perhaps, there is not. Cash's piece is honest in a different way. His "hurt" comes also from the mistakes of the past, but there is the glow of hope permeating throughout. Watch your emotions at the end of each video and ask yourself the question: How can these two worldviews be views of the same world?

When Reznor first heard Cash's cover this was his response:

"I pop the video in, and wow… Tears welling, silence, goose-bumps… Wow. I just lost my girlfriend, because that song isn't mine anymore… It really made me think about how powerful music is as a medium and art form. I wrote some words and music in my bedroom as a way of staying sane, about a bleak and desperate place I was in, totally isolated and alone. [Somehow] that winds up reinterpreted by a music legend from a radically different era/genre and still retains sincerity and meaning — different, but every bit as pure."^[1]

Free Audio: Practicing the Presence of God

On ChristianAudio.com you can now download Brother Lawrence's classic writing, Practicing the Presence of God.

Art Appreciation 1000

In high school, we learned how to analyze poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. Those who delved into the fine arts learned further how to evaluate music, theater, and art.

At church, pastors and sunday school teachers instruct us on how to interpret the bible. Some of us join bible studies and read books which further help us understand doctrine and theology.

Yet, during our education, it seems these two things rarely overlap. In fact, they often seem to collide. Many Christians think good, God-honoring, "Christian art" is a narrow field. With this view, one might believe that a God-honoring novel must be an allegory for a biblical story. Likewise, a "Christian" song must explicitly praise the name of God, and a godly painting must depict a cross.

In many ways this view contaminates our ability to appreciate art, which is a travesty. I think art (music, painting, theater, poetry, fiction, and much more) is the way mankind imitates God the creator. In the bible, dance, theater, music, poetry, sculpture and literature honor God. In the Pentateuch, the holy spirit inspires plans for multiple beautiful, artful works: the priests robes, the tabernacle, the brazen serpent, the arc of the covenant, and more.

The Lord cares deeply for beauty and has not limited his care for excellent art to explicitly religious material. Christ's Lordship is over all of creation, including all of art. It is okay for a Christian to enjoy the technical excellence of a painting, declare it beautiful art, and disagree with the artist's message. Why? Because the artist reflected God's love for good, beautiful creations by creating an excellent painting.

Once we appreciate the beauty of a piece of artwork, I think it's always a Christian's duty to discern the worldview it portrays. This does not simply mean searching for surface level biblical content. Instead, the Christian views artwork through the gospel lens, and searches out biblical truths (both hidden and unhidden). A movie may be polluted with terribly immoral themes, but the Christian recognizes that this movie is an accurate portrayal of human brokenness because of the fall.

One caviot: it's totally foolish to pull at strings, and make a piece of artwork say something it does not say. My goal instead would be to determine the artist's message, and attempt to distinguish the truths from untruths in the artwork. I think many Christians falsely assume that there is no truth to be found in "secular" art; I believe it is rampant with beauty, and we ought search out truth and validate it!

When the body of Christ respects and engages art in authentic ways, we bridge gaps with well cultivated cultural sensitivity. This opens doors for meaningful conversations and our eyes to the evident glory of Christ all around us.

UnChristian (3)

My thanks to Nathan Tiemeyer and Every Square Inch for the following:

"More highlights from David Kinnaman’s arresting new book unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity, this time from chapter 4, “Get Saved.”

After a few introductory paragraphs, Kinnaman details a several myths associated with reaching people with the gospel that the Barna group has uncovered in their polling research. Two examples:

Myth: The best evangelism efforts are those that reach the most people at once.
Reality: “The most effective efforts to share faith are interpersonal and relationship based” (70).

Myth: Anything that brings people to Christ is worth doing.
Reality: “When you’re talking dollars, there is no price too high for a soul. But the problem isn’t just cost. In our research with some of the leading ‘mass evangelism’ efforts, we found that often these measures created three to ten times as much negative responses and positive. …Our research shows that the “collateral damage” of [strategies like these]—those whose impressions of your church and of Christianity would be more negative as a result—is significantly greater than the positive impact on those who will respond favorably to these efforts (71).

After discussing these and other misconceptions, Kinnaman turns to an observation that may come as a surprise to many Christians: “The vast majority of outsiders in the country, particularly among young generations, are actually de-churched individuals” (74). In essence, this means that most young non-Christians have had significant exposure to Christians and the church and eventually moved on. The pressing question is why.

According to Kinnaman, one important factor is that the church has given people “a superficial understanding of the gospel” and focused “only on their decision to convert” (75). While 65% of the younger generation indicate they’ve made a commitment to Christ, only 3% possess a biblical worldview—even when such a worldview is defined fairly broadly as in the study mentioned in the book. It’s a tragically low number, one that clearly indicates the American church, as a whole, is clearly dropping the ball. A faith that calls for minimal commitment, that makes very little impact in the way you think and therefore act, is a faith that is all too easy to walk away from.

I’ll close this post with one final quote from the chapter:

How deep is the faith that you convey to outsiders? What type of depth are we asking our friends and neighbors to have? A get-saved approach ignores the fact that most people in America have made an emotional connection to Jesus before; now they need much more than a one-dimensional understanding of him.

More of the same lightweight exposure to Christianity, where a decision for Christ is portrayed as simple and costless, will fail to produce lasting faith in young people. We have to decide what our measures of success will be over the next decade. Where will we be more effective—trying increase the number of young adults who make emotional commitments to Christ or facilitating significant growth in the 3 percent who have a biblical worldview (76)?"

Art Every Wednesday (9)

A blog grows up like a person, changing over time. You used to think it was cool to wear those elastic black pants every day, now you have become a man and you have put childish things behind you. It's the same with blogs. In the name of growing up we are making a change: Poem Wednesday is expanding to include lots of other forms of art other than poetry (though poetry will still make regular appearances). Look for photography, painting, literature recommendations, songs and lyrics, sculpture, and the list goes on and on. As well as actual examples of art I hope to do some apologetics for art generally and try to answer the question "Why Art?" bit by bit every week.

To make the transition as smooth as possible this week's Art Every Wednesday blends mediums. It is a painting about a myth and a poem about the painting.

"The Fall of Icarus" By Bruegel:

Musee Des Beaux Arts
W. H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully
along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

UnChristian (2)

My thanks to Nathan Tiemeyer and Every Square Inch for the following:

I mentioned in an earlier post that I’ve been reading and appreciating David Kinnaman’s unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity. I thought I’d take an opportunity to pass on a few of the many interesting/alarming things that have particularly caught my attention so far.

In chapter three, “Hypocritical,” Kinnaman makes the point that there is very little difference in lifestyle among those claiming to be born-again Christians* and the rest of society:

When asked to identify their activities over the last thirty days, born-again believers were just as likely to bet or gamble, to visit a pornographic website, to take something that did not belong to them, to consult a medium or psychic, to physically fight or abuse someone, to have consumed enough alcohol to be considered legally drunk, to have used an illegal, non-prescription drug, to have said something to someone who wasn’t true, to have gotten back at someone for something he or she did, and to have said mean things behind another person’s back (47). \

In addition, of those outside the church who say they personally know at least one committed Christian, only 15% say those Christians demonstrate any significant difference in lifestyle from the norm.

For those who pay attention to such things, the above information isn’t exactly a new revelation. But Kinnaman notes the problem goes even deeper. Despite exhibiting behavior that is virtually indistinguishable from those around them, Christians list what Kinnaman terms “lifestyle” (i.e., “being good, doing the right thing, not sinning”) as the most commonly indicated (37%) priority of their personal faith. Not only is this sentiment, biblically speaking, putting the cart before the horse, but it also leads to a rather sobering reality. Kinnaman explains:

It’s not just our lifestyles that have gotten us into trouble; it’s the very way in which we convey the priorities of being a Christian. The most common message people hear from us is that Christianity is a religion of rules and regulations. They think of us as hypocritical because they are measuring us by our own standards (48).

And again, a few pages later:

Outsiders think of our moralizing, our condemnations, and our attempts to draw boundaries around everything. Even if these standards are accurate and biblical, they seem to be all we have to offer. And our lives are a poor advertisement for these standards. We have set the game board to register lifestyle points; then we are surprised to be trapped by our own mistakes. The truth is we have invited the hypocritical image (52).

And what is the remedy for all of this? Not only to Christians need to understand that moral change is the fruit of a transformed heart (not the other way around), but we also need to cultivate an appropriate transparency, i.e., freely but not flippantly “admitting what the Bible says about us: we are fallen people who desperately need God in our lives—every day” (55).


*As defined in the study, a “born-again” Christian is someone who “has made a personal commitment to Jesus that is still important and that the person believes he or she will go to heaven at death, because the person has confessed his or her sin and accepted Christ as Savior” (46). Kinnaman acknowledges the limitations of this description and talks later in the book about better ways to measure the depth of a person’s Christian commitment.

UnChristian (1)

My thanks to Nathan Tiemeyer and Every Square Inch for the following:

"I’ve recently begun reading a provocative new book called unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity…and Why It Matters. As the name hints, the book is an attempt to discern the perception of Christianity held America’s younger generation (primarily ages 16-29). Toward that end, David Kinnaman, unChristian’s primary author and president of the Barna Group, employs extensive survey research targeting not only “outsiders,” a group that “includes atheists, agnostics, those affiliated with a faith other than Christianity…and other unchurched adults who are not born-again Christians” (17), but also the younger population within the church.

And what does the data reveal? In the author’s words, “It’s not a pretty picture” (15).

One major conclusion of Kinnaman’s research is that the church’s problems are the result of much more than the biblically promised misunderstandings and even antipathy felt toward the Church by those outside of it. Rather, our problems have as much or more to do with our own numerous misconceptions and failings. (A conclusion, I might add, that is consistent with the distinction made in 1 Peter 3 and 4 between suffering for appropriate and inappropriate reasons.)

Though I’m only a few chapters in, I’ve been impressed so far by Kinnaman’s approach to his subject matter. He’s exhibited a commendable willingness to hold firmly to biblical truth while showing respect to those who do not endorse it. Avoiding self-righteous stone-throwing, he nevertheless doesn’t hesitate to call those of us professing to be Christians to take a good hard look at the current alarming realities associated with our beliefs and practices. He also seems careful to note when a particular viewpoint is salutary in some respect but incomplete or mistaken in another (see, e.g., his discussion of the priority Christians place on moral behavior in chapter 3). And finally, his overall analysis has demonstrated itself to be accessible but not simplistic.

More thoughts to come...but in the meantime, you might consider checking out unChristian yourself."

A Poem A Wednesday (8)

A Story the Could Be True
William Stafford

If you were exchanged in the cradle and
your real mother died
without ever telling the story
then no one knows your name,
and somewhere in the world
your father is lost and needs you
but you are far away.

He can never find
how true you are, how ready.
When the great wind comes
and the robberies of the rain
you stand in the corner shivering.
The people who go by -
you wonder at their calm.

They miss the whisper that runs
any day in your mind,
"Who are you really, wanderer?" -
and the answer you have to give
no matter how dark and cold
the world around you is:
"Maybe I'm a king."

Bring Back the Sabbath

Judith Shulevitz writes with candor and insight about American's incessant drive to work and chronic inability to really rest in this article from the New York Times. Shulevitz understands the American heart; both why it can't rest and why it needs to learn to.

Here are two quotes from the article:

"In the Darwinian world of the New York 20-something, everything -- even socializing, reading or exercising -- felt like work or the pursuit of work by other means. [Workaholism] has become the norm, and the Sabbath, the one day in seven dedicated to rest by divine command, has become the holiday Americans are most likely never to take. Ours is a society that pegs status to overachievement; we can't help admiring workaholics…We relax on the run and, in rare bursts of free time, we recreate. We choose from a dizzying array of leisure options and pursue them with an exemplary degree of professionalism and perfectionism. We rush our children from activity to activity, their days a blur of tight connections.”

“We could let the world wind us up and set us to marching, like mechanical dolls that go and go until they fall over, because they don't have a mechanism that allows them to pause. But that would make us less than human. We have to remember to stop because we have to stop to remember.” – Judith Shulevitz