Review Corner: Doubt

If you watched the Academy Awards this past year, one movie tough to ignore was Doubt. Having four actors nominated for acting awards does that some times. I remember being intrigued by the previews, but didn't get a chance to see it until a couple of weeks ago now that it's out on DVD. On the artistic side, you won't be surprised why the movie was up for so many awards. Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman in particular are mind-blowingly good. The quality of acting alone makes the movie worth watching.

The plot of the movie is about an empathetic, charismatic priest accused of child molestation by a a devout and confidently rigid nun. You might think that this movie would be unfairly biased against the priest with what's gone on in recent years. Yet, the movie does a fantastic job of making each character complex. In some ways, the movie is painfully complex. Many of us want to see films where we end up knowing what happened and who the good people are and who the bad people are. Doubt is not that kind of movie. No, sometimes I get angered at movies in which the point is that there is no point. Doubt, however, escapes that condemnation because it's not trying to say that it doesn't matter what happened. After watching the movie, you can't help but have an impression of what you think happened. Therefore, in this way, the movie tells you something about your own biases of perception. It forces you to say that what you think happened may not be what really happened. It forces you to "doubt" your ability to know with certainty what happened. This all sounds very postmodern, and in some ways it is. However, it seems that what the movie ultimately calls for is humility with our own perceptions and to be willing to continue to ask questions to find out. It's not saying there is no right and wrong in the situation, nor is it saying it doesn't matter what happened. Instead, it's saying the world is sometimes more complex than we want it to be. And, as Christians, we should give a hearty "amen." We are far too often accused of making prideful, unquestioning accusations. We are far too often prone to make quick judgments. We do need to learn to recognize that we too are finite, broken people. God is truly changing us, but yet we still are hampered in our ability to administer justice with certainty. God knows. Our trust is in Him. In the meantime, we need to grow in being quick to be humble and persevere in asking questions while holding tightly to the truth we have in God's revelation to us.

For more, read Andy's blog "Doubt And Our Limitations."

Review Corner: Cardinology by Ryan Adams

As this is my first review of music I figure its high time I say a thing or two about how it is done. This is not about mining a work of art for a "Christian nugget." Art comes from the soul, and it is impolite to mine a soul. Art is about a connection between to humans over their mutual life in this silly, wonderful, sad world. You cannot figure out everything on your own, you need a little help. That is where art - today, Ryan Adams - comes in. Adams has lived on different streets than you have, and in 3 minute and 30 second intervals he will take you by the hand wandering through that maze of alleys and narrow shops where vendors hawk wares you never dreamed of, but always hoped to.

I do not know Ryan Adams or why he makes his music, but the person i see in glimpses through the billowing curtain of his music is part whimsy and mischief pulled over a deep well of insight and loneliness sharp enough to pierce the veil that lies between us. I have seen Adams in concert once in Columbia, Mo in the Missouri Theater looking every bit of uncomfortable with the staid, seated audience in the classy theater. He called us his "NPR" audience. You got the impression he was used to smoky, pink-lit crowds screaming and pressing in on him at the foot of the stage to the noise of beer bottles tipping over and shouted song requests. But that night in the Missouri Theater we would not rise up into that typical concert crowd no matter how he taunted us. It brought a mischief out in the band and their banter reflected their trying to make sense of the atmosphere, while we listened from our soft, fixed, stadium chairs, and laughed generously at their poor jokes.

Then the music would begin and the ethos of the stage would swing from nervous, teenage banter to a kind of sad profundity that had us all open-mouthed and on the edge of our seats. It was as though something had fallen in between us and covered them, or something had been revealed. The music was alternately loud and brash, and soft and poignant. Adams sang as though the voice was being drawn out of him by large, invisible hands that were pulling strongly, but tenderly, as if not to let the fragile thread break. He bent over the microphone as if the singing was costing him something.

This was the Cardinology tour for their new album of the same name and they mixed new songs with old favorites that the crowd responded to with applause. Adams style gets at me because of that same peculiar mix that we saw on the stage that night. He seems part trickster and part bereaved. His music swings through all sorts of genres and tempos, yet always returning to that loud guitar and slight country twang that is his staple. Cardinology yields up its fruits slowly and is worth many listens.

Read the lyrics from "Crossed Out Name" and ask yourself if you can see the sadness in it. Can you see the questions? He is asking the most important questions about existence, God, and whether or not it will be ok in the end. To paraphrase Francis Schaeffer, this is sensitivity crying out in the dark and until we understand the truth contained here we have no right to speak to our generation.

"Into the crowded streets I go
Eventually they lead me back home
Where we used to live,
I live along and into bed I go

I wish I could tell you
Just how I felt
I don't pray I shower
And say goodnight to myself
And when I close my eyes
I feel like a page
With a crossed out name
With a crossed out name...

I Wish I could tell you
Just how I'm hurt
Then point the location
And turn the universe
And when I close my eyes
I see a fire so blank
And my crossed out name
Crossed-out names
I see a crossed out name
I see a crossed out name."

Doubt and Our Limitations

Doubt is part of the human condition. Christianity puts forth clear, understandable truths about God, ourselves, and reality, but that doesn't mean real Christians don't doubt. The word doubt has a bad rap and all sorts of negative connotations. But I think we do Christianity a disservice if we hold up as the model believer one who acts as though he or she has God's mysteries completely ironed out and treats questioning as if it were the same as unbelief. Of course it is not. Faith involves knowledge and belief, but if our salvation hung upon cracking the nut of the universe so that it yielded answers to every question and put to rest every doubt, then who would be saved?

The truth is, we are all doubters. It is built into the very fabric of the way God made us. If you are not (by that I mean, if you do not feel your doubts currently) it may be a good thing or it may be a bad thing. It may be coming from a settled confidence in the goodness of what the Lord has revealed about the world, and the fact that it is still good even though he has not revealed it all. Or it could be coming from an over-estimation of your knowledge, an over-confidence in your own grasp. You might believe, deep down, that you have cracked the nut, and had enough.

I say we are all doubters for 2 reasons:
1. We are finite
2. We are fallen

Finite:
God has given humanity a great grace in the ability to reason, but still we are surrounded by mysteries larger than ourselves. If you will, that is all science is; peering into the mysteries. Astronomy, biology, geology, psychology. Science is in the business of extending our finitude. But we are finite, and so our knowledge always come to us from the bottom-up. We piece bits together gradually. We do not have the top-down knowledge that God does. This is especially true when we are talking about the knowledge of God and the world he has made. Here we are dealing with the workings of an infinite being, which means, by definition, there will always be more that we do not understand than we do. We are always in the position of children. There is always “adult” business going on around us that we are too young for. We are sitting in a poorly lit corner of a vast darkness.Our finitude puts us in the position of need. We are in need of the voice from outside to speak into creation. We are in need of the knowledge that does not come pieces together in a confused mosaic. The Christian worldview says that this is exactly what has happened. The maker of the world has spoken into it and continues to speak into it.

Fallen
Not only are we finite, but we are fallen. Our first parents walked in the garden with God in the cool of the day, but it is not so anymore. They could ask him questions. They could touch him and see him. They could experience his care for them easily and without confusion. But we have difficulty. The Enlightenment said that our reason is not fallen, but the fall didn’t leave reason untainted. Nor did it leave anything untainted. Our will, our emotions, our ability to see the world clearly and judge it well are all fallen. We have lost our reference point and now our compass spins in all directions. What does this mean for our discussion of doubt? It means that not only are we in a poorly lit corner of a vast darkness but our eyes are rheumy and fogged. Doubt comes with the territory. We are doubly in need. We need help in finding the pieces of the mosaic, and we need help arranging them in the right way and understanding them rightly. Left to our own we would, and do, make a terrible mess of it.

The demand for “proof” for the Christians faith breaks down on these two problems. Certainly there is much that can be confidently understood and believed it. God is committed to us and he has spoken in languages we can understand. There is not a drought of God's voice in the world. I would say, on the contrary, that there is a flood. What if God (as the Bible seems to say) is always speaking into the world, only we are too small to hear it, or are not willing to listen? "Proof" that may come from an infinite God may simply be too big for us to understand. There are certainly things that he might say that we would be confusing, like learning calculus when you have only just mastered multiplication. We are without the intervening knowledge needed for God to speak plainly to us. There are certainly also things that God might say, in answer to our questioning, that would seem awful to us, but it would not be his answers that are awful and broken. It would ourselves. If it comes from God it comes from a country that is very, very different from anything that we have ever experienced in that it is unfallen. We may not be able to eat it, like a child simply cannot eat solid food.

We ought to have a realistic idea of our own limitations. This means neither that we can know nothing with a certainty, nor that we can know it all. Our best knowing will happen when we try to know with a firm grasp on these limitations.

5 Books I Read in 2008

At the beginning of the year I posted on "5 Books I Want to Read in 2008", and I've wanted to do a short review on them since the new year. Finally, in April, I am getting around to it. I think it is worth doing, if a bit late. The books were very good and I recommend them all (the 4 out of 5 that I read... oops).

1. The Reason for God by Tim Keller
This book has been called a modern day Mere Christianity and, for my money, it lives up to the title. I was so impressed with Keller's sensitivity to the culture we are living in and his ability to give clear, winsome answers to some of the toughest questions the Christian worldview faces today. The book grew out of Keller's experience as a pastor in New York City, and it bears traces of its pastoral origins throughout. The first part of the book tackles questions like "How can one religion be right and others wrong?" How could a loving God send people to Hell?" "Can the Bible be trusted?" The second half of the book is a more general apology for the Christian religion. This is book is intelligent, but you don't have to be an academic to read it. It presents the truthfulness of the Christian worldview, but there is not an person in my life who does not believe that I would not be comfortable giving a copy of The Reason for God. For more from Tim Keller check out Steve Mccoy's Keller page.

2. Vintage Jesus by Mark Driscoll
Well, I didn't actually get around to reading this one. Sorry Mark... I have read Driscoll before and heard him in sermons and recommend him highly. He is a breath of fresh air if you want straight talk and can take a little sharp humor. For more from Driscoll type his name into itunes and podcast his weekly sermons and Mars Hill Church.

3. Searching for a Better God by Wade Bradshaw
Another of Bradshaw's books, By Demonstration: God, came at a time in my life when I was just begining to ask the questions Bradshaw was answering. The book was incredibly helpful, so I was excited to hear that he was writing another. Searching for a Better God is an expansion on an idea that he hinted at in By Demonstration: God. Bradshaw says that in the time Christianity arrived in the world the old gods were falling. They were flawed and fallen and essentially no different than corrupt humans, except they had more power. The people longed for a higher moral purity, something that was free of the pettiness of the greek and roman gods. They saw this in Christianity. Now, however, we are living in a time when the tables have turned. These days the culture looks at Christianity and believes itself to be more moral that the Christian God. God is seen to be judgmental, angry, wrathful, petty, and unfair and our culture is searching for a better God. Bradshaw analyzes our cultural climate and tries to renew the beauties of the real God in the minds of his readers. Like Keller, he takes on the culture's most difficult questions and points, not to a better God, but a better understanding of the God of the Bible.

4. Being Human by Ranald Macaulay and Jerram Barrs
Being Human is a comprehensive book about so many things it is difficult to write a short review of it. The book is thoughtful and challenging. One of the primary goals of the book, as the title would suggest, is to answer the question: what does it mean to be human? Macaulay and Barrs' say that that answer it fundamentally tied to the amazing fact that we are made in God's image. Being human is simply living out the image of God in our daily lives. From there they scatter, talking about misconceptions the church has about what it means to be human, and presenting a positive vision for taking their ideas and actually living them out. Read this book if you want to learn foundational things that shape the way you see everything else.

5. The Heart of Prayer by Jerram Barrs
The beauty of this book is Barrs' humility and sincerity. The book is abotu prayer, but it is not a how-to guide. You won't find any formulas here to increase the power of your prayers. Instead you will find yourself being drawn to think of God's care for you as a creation he has made and loves. If that is true then your prayers, short or long, eloquent or simply a desperate cry, will be heard. Barrs does offer practical thoughts and stories, however. The things I most valued about this book is Barrs' posture. It not written from an expert to the inept, but as a fellow human, who continuously struggles in prayer, but who has found great solace in God's care. For more from Jerram Barrs, go to Covenant Seminary's webpage.

Art Wednesday: Are you a Patron?

Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC asks the question, "Are you a patron?" to all those concerned with issues of faith and art. After the few questions follows an eloquent and concise case for christians investing themselves deeply in art. Enjoy these words from Redeemer. The church throughout history has been a fountainhead for patronage of the arts, until, that is, modern times, when it is more likely to see the church pitted against the art world or withdrawing from it. In such a setting Redeemer's words are, frankly, a relief.

The Quiz:

Have you attended an arts event or venue in the last six months? (live music concert, museum or gallery, play, dance performance, independent film, etc.)

Do you have a favorite art form that you particularly enjoy experiencing and learning about?

Do you occasionally attend different types of arts events/venues, besides your favorite?

Do you have a favorite artist or arts organization whose work you follow closely?

Do you ever spread the word about a particular arts event or artist?

Do you sometimes look through the Arts section in newspapers or magazines?

Have you financially supported an arts organization or artist (outside of purchasing tickets) in the last year?

Do you know an artist, are you involved in his/her life, and are you actively supporting his/her career?

Scoring:

• If you answered “yes” to 7 or 8 of these questions, you rock! You're definitely the kind of patron we want to see everyone at Redeemer becoming! Keep up the great work!
• If you answered "yes" to 5 or 6 of the questions, you're also a patron, actively supporting the arts. Maybe think about the questions you responded "no" to, and consider how you might bring that into your arts and culture experience. And let us help you become even more engaged in the arts through our Arts Month and Culture Club events.
• If you answered "yes" to fewer than 5...well...we have lots of opportunities for you to learn and grow as a patron! Attend Arts Month events, and join our Culture Club for monthly arts outings around the city.
  

Why Be A Patron?

The word "patron" comes from the Latin patrōnus, meaning "advocate," which in turn came from pater, meaning "father." Patrons can simply be customers (when you give a store your patronage), or they can be be protectors (patron saints). In the arts, we use the word "patron" to describe anything from a casual observer (buying a ticket but not engaging any further) to the strongest supporter (providing significant financial and other support).

The arts need real patrons – customers, yes, but also protectors, advocates, and "fathers." Why? The benefits of the arts are intangible, and are therefore not easily measured or defended. The arts don't tend to be financially profitable, and can sometimes challenge audiences in uncomfortable – but necessary – ways. Artists don't tend to advocate well for themselves – we need those whose lives have been influenced by the arts to communicate the value of what we do to others. But the effort is worth the price. In a recent fundraising letter, Dance Theater Workshop, a NYC dance advocacy and performance non-profit, wrote:

In times of uncertainty, what we choose to stand behind can be brought into question. Is it wise to invest precious financial resources in art and the people who create it when each new day can seem more tumultuous than the last? The answer is simply, yes. It is in times such as these that art can have its greatest impact. Art has the power to change our world view, to open up and re-invigorate our perspective, and now, more than ever, the work of art-making deserves the ferocity of our attention.

Christians, and the Church, have a mixed history of arts patronage. Some of the greatest works of visual art and music ever created were commissioned to the glory of God by churches and individual Christians. But, particularly in recent times and with some art forms, the Church's message has sometimes been less positive about the value of the arts in the world, and in Christians' lives.

Redeemer's mission is to "renew the city socially, spiritually, and culturally." In a talk, Tim Keller said, "The best way to help the world is through the arts." Redeemerite and author, Ted Scofield, writes:

Christians cannot abdicate the arts to secular society. We must consume, study, and participate in the arts if we are to have a seat at the table. Whether it has a religious theme or strikes us as irreligious, we must be patrons if we are to have an impact on how the world interprets and responds to the arts. We cannot be wary, we cannot be afraid, we cannot be self-righteous. Christians must look, listen, read, and experience the arts if we are to lead our culture to renewal.

Thanks to the Center for Faith and Work and also to Critique.

Kristoff and the world's poor

Nicolas Kristoff, columnist for the New York Times, writes about the disproportionately brutal impact the financial crisis has on the worlds poor:

As world leaders gather in London for the Group of 20 summit meeting, the most wrenching statistic is this: According to World Bank estimates, the global economic crisis will cause an additional 22 children to die per hour, throughout all of 2009.
And that’s the best-case scenario. The World Bank says it’s possible the toll will be twice that: an additional 400,000 child deaths, or an extra child dying every 79 seconds.
“In London, Washington and Paris, people talk of bonuses or no bonuses,” Robert Zoellick, the World Bank president, said this week. “In parts of Africa, South Asia and Latin America, the struggle is for food or no food.”

Thanks to A Glass Darkly for pointing out Kristoff's article.

Berry: Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community

Wendell Berry writes in Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community of our culture's hypocrisy in using the term pluralism. He calls into question the goodness of what our culture means when it talks about it tolerance for plurality, and the wisdom of building community on "superficial courtesies."

"There is, in fact, a good deal of talk about pluralism these days, but most of it that I have seen is fashionable, superficial, and virtually worthless. It does not foresee or advocate a plurality of settled communities but is only a sort of indifferent charity toward a plurality of aggrieved groups and individuals. It attempts to deal liberally - that is, by superficial courtesies of tolerance and egalitarianism - with a confusion of claims."

There are two ways to have peace in a pluralistic society: you can treat every voice as equally true, good, right, and valid, or you can recognize differences in the voices as being real and meaningful (including making judgments about their truth) and still respond with love and respect toward those differences. Our culture has chosen the first way. In doing so we have become tolerant of anyone who has an opinion except those who think their opinion is a kind of truth that everyone belongs to whether they agree or not. This is a culture of "indifferent charity" which can last only as long as you are not too committed to the truth you hold, as long as it stays in the "private" sphere. We believe very strongly that if you believe something too strongly then it will automatically lead to oppression towards those who disagree, but this is only because we are losing the means to truly and deeply those who disagree. We have learned how to be polite, but we have not learned how to love. The problem with a pluralistic society making this choice is that it seeks peace by trying to reduce every claim to the lowest common denominator. In seeking to raise up every idea and equally valid it instead pulls down every idea into a bog where they are truly equal only because they are equally meaningless and powerless. However, there is a another way to have peace in a pluralistic culture, but it involves retaining a healthy sense of Wrong, which our culture hates to do. It means remembering that discernment between good and bad does not always mean oppression, and the belief that it does actually prevents real love because it prevents real community where people can come to understand one another at the deepest level and disagree over their differences but truly love one another.

Art Wednesday: Berry on art that offends

Wendell Berry writes in Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community of playwright, Arthur Kopit, who said this of one of his plays:

"I am immodestly proud that it is written in consistently bad taste. It's about vile people who do vile things. They are totally loathsome, and I love them all.... I am almost positive it has something to offend everyone."

In the essay Berry takes issue with Kopit's intent to offend and uses it as an occasion to discuss what happens when artists use their gifts to destroy. He writes:

"I know that for a century of so many artists have felt it was their duty - a mark of their honesty and courage - to offend their audience... But I would distinguish between the intention to offend and the willingness to risk offending. Honesty and artistic integrity do not require anyone to intend to give offense, though they may certainly cause offense... I wish that [artists who want to offend] could see that they who make offensiveness an artistic or didactic procedure are drawing on a moral capital that they may be using up... The idea that people can be improved by being offended will finally have to meet the idea that books, popular songs, movies, television shows, sex videos, and so on are "just fiction" or "just art" and therefore exist "for their own sake" and have no influence. To argue that works of art are "only" fictions of self-expressions and therefore cannot cause bad behavior is also to argue that they cannot cause good behavior. It is, moreover, to make an absolute division between art and life, experience and life, mind and body - a division that is intolerable to anyone who is at all serious about being a human or a member of a community or even a citizen."

Art has the power to make change, and artists step into the heavy responsibility of using that power with integrity when they step into the realm of their art. There is no "art for art's sake" as if there could be a neutral cultural product. The things we make come from a worldview and carry that worldview within them. We cannot control every stray influence that someone takes out a work of art, but we can control what we are purposing in the art.

To seek to offend as an end in itself may "draw on a moral capital" that the community needs, and in so doing, drain it. What does it mean for art to replenish that moral capital? What does it mean for an artist's truth-telling to be a blessing to the community (which may involve offending it if it needs correction, but does not inherently involve it)?

Art is not only fiction. It touches the real world and can change it. Francis Schaeffer argued that artists often played the role of translator of the higher realms of thought to the masses, so that the masses come to understand the world in the ways that the artists have come to understand the world. This makes artists the culture's imaginers and dreamers and, as such, they have a key role in imagining the future of a people. We need artist to be faithful to that responsibility and tell their stories with truth, compassion, and honesty, and we need to come to understand this in a way that separates that faithfulness from the obligation to brutality.