Does Better Theology Make For Better Art?

It is assumed in our culture that Christianity undercuts real art, that a better Christian and a better artist are mutually exclusive. Art is seen as being about honesty and religion about wishful thinking. Art wrestles with the gritty realities of life, while religion is a crutch used to stave off life’s existential fears. Art is thought of as drawing people to the edge of their experience and understanding, while Christians draws them back to the status quo. However you want to think of it, we live in a culture where Christianity and creativity are not commonly associated.


It is counter-intuitive to say that for an artist to become a better artist he or she must (along with studying the craft itself, being involved in the community of artists, etc.) immerse himself or herself in theology. However, if we understand theology and art aright, we find this is exactly what must happen.

Theology, rather than being the study of the obscure arguments of “theologians” is simply the study of reality. If that is true then theology is the study of life is it is, was, and is meant to be, and artists who hope to tell a true story about this world must truly know the story they find themselves in. Mistake the story and an artist can still tell truth and can certainly make beauty. It would be foolish to say otherwise – there is a world of beauty that doesn’t come with the Christian label. Christians must learn to seek it, see it, and praise it anywhere it is to be found! However, theology teaches the true story that runs along the grain of the fabric of this world. It is the story that is the context of all our smaller stories – the stage they are all acted out upon. In this sense all art, all beauty, all truth merely borrows from God’s stores and has its being only in the world God has made. Theology makes better art because it is the act of climbing inside the story we are living in, and intentionally coming to understand it. When an artist does this she finds that the story climbs inside her as well. It becomes the light by which she sees all of life, including her art. It will then appear in her art – if she loves the truth, she will tell it. If it speaks truly of the world in which we were truly made then it will reach inside the viewer, the reader, the listener and ring dusty bells inside them. The “holy days on the calendar will wake up and chime.” We will all find that “I had been my whole life a bell and not known it until I was lifted and struck.”

To be specific, take two ideas Christian theology teaches and see how they have created truer art: idolatry and depravity. By idolatry I mean the complicated exchange by which we come to want things that can hurt us and the way that desire tends to turn to need, then addiction. The Bible teaches the mechanisms of idolatry, which are also the mechanisms of betrayal, of obsession, of murder, of long-simmering bitterness. It also teaches the means of repentance and the flourishing that it brings. For a lesson in how understanding idolatry makes for true stories watch the 1985 Academy Award winner, Amadeus. It is the story of one composer, Salieri, and how his love for Mozart’s music turned into hatred for the man because his own place had been eclipsed by Mozart’s greater gift. His piety turns to bitterness to God because God had denied him the one thing Salieri was using God to achieve. As an old man, with Mozart long dead, Salieri is still nursing his ancient bitterness and the power of the film is in the way it portrays him as a tired old man clutching at the threads of his own glory whose world is centered on himself and himself only.

Take another truth that Christianity teaches, that this world has gone horribly wrong and that wrong lives in each on of us as well. I have never encountered human depravity portrayed than in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. His characters are so fragile and foolish and full of bluster, yet so unexpectedly wise and tender and human. Dostoyevsky found his faith in the midst of human depravity – in the Soviet gulag – reading the pages of a borrowed New Testament. I imagine the faith he found gave him massive spiritual resources for seeing the beauty and the real ugliness in all the depravity around him. You cannot read The Brothers Karamazov without yearning for the wayward characters to make a true repentance and yet having the uttermost compassion for them whatever they do. This is Christianity coming out of an artist not as propaganda, but simply as a result of Dostoyevsky immersing himself in the theology of reality and then trying to tell a story. I can’t help but think that it is the way his art and his faith were integrated that will make his work endure as long as humanity does. It reminds me of a story in Philip Yancey’s book (UNEXPECTED PLACES>>>) when he went into the former soviet union as one of the first westerners allowed in after the iron curtain fell. He did not expect to find a thriving church in a country where Christianity was persecuted so tenaciously as it was in the soviet union, but that is exactly he found. When he asked how this could be the reply that came to him was that, “they took away our bibles, but they did not take away our Tolstoy and our Dostokevsky.”

The Father has strewn his grace everywhere. Artists have the power to join their work to that Great Work if they will only learn that their faith and their art are not separate things, but that each one draws them deeper into the other.

Taken by Twilight

I haven’t read the book(s), but my wife and I sat down and watched Twilight for the first time on DVD last night. I had been wondering what all the fuss was about and why so many have been so attracted to this series. We both enjoyed the movie in general, and it led to some good discussion afterwards, especially regarding why young women are so especially attracted to it.

My wife made the comment that she didn’t think she would get into the movie as much as she did, these are vampires for crying out loud, right? I mean, who would want a nice, normal high school girl to get in a relationship with a dangerous, blood-sucking vampire? Surprisingly, we did! That’s what was amazing about the movie (and about the book too is my guess). By the middle of the movie, you are wanting a relationship to happen that you wouldn’t have wanted before. Why? Because the vampire character, Edward, draws in both the main girl in the story, Bella, and the audience like a tractor beam. A character that starts off somewhat dark and mysterious, soon is discovered to be indomitably, irresistibly attractive. What is it about this vampire that is so attractive, even obsessively so, for Bella and so many viewers? As Edward admits to Bella in the movie, everything about himself is designed to attract her (his prey) to himself. Although his complexion is eerily ghost-like pale, he wins us over by being very caring and concerned, strong, intelligent, protective, chivalrous, romantic – the list goes on and on. Later in the story, we also find out that Edward has waited for someone like Bella for a long time and has now chosen at great potential cost to himself and his family to set all of his affection on her. We also see that he is a self-sacrificing lover – although there is a part of him that wants nothing more than to go into a feeding frenzy on her blood, instead, he has learned to control himself and care for her with a seemingly unstoppable, eternal love (vampires are immortal). As a pastor, I would say it is very important (as always) to use discernment in watching this movie because it can become something that further feeds a lie which our culture has swallowed hook-line-and-sinker: you will be totally fulfilled when you find Mr. or Mrs. Right. The movie could be dangerously misleading for naïve women and men who think they might possibly be able to find a completely heart-satisfying “soul-mate” in this life. It could create destructively unrealistic expectations for any earthly relationship. But with discernment, I believe Twilight very dramatically exposes what it is that we want most in this life. At the core of us, we want to be loved like Edward loves Bella more than anything else in the universe. We want to know that someone who is incredibly good and trustworthy and desirable and strong loves us with an irresistible, unfailing, always and forever love. Although this universal, deep-seated need will never be met by a mere mortal, Twilight is absolutely correct in pointing us to look for this kind of love in something or someone immortal. One of the great things about Twilight is that it not only gives us ways to think about what we want most but also gives us vivid ways to think about how Jesus is truly the only one who could ever satisfy our desire. Just think with me for a minute … what if it were true, that the kind of love that we see in Twilight were only a shadowy, dark picture of something even greater offered to us only in Christ? It would no doubt be the best news in all the world. What if someone incredibly strong and good and infinitely desirable had decided to set his unending love on you from before you were born, just because he loves you and for no other reason? What if it were true that this person was completely irresistible and drew you to himself in such a way that your love and desire and enjoyment of him would never fade? What if it were true that this person not only cared so intimately about you that He would literally watch over you while you sleep and catch every one of your tears in a bottle but was also so strong that he defended you from all evil and harm? What if it were true that although this person was so infinitely powerful and glorious that you could not even stand to look at him or be in his presence, He also loved you so much that He deliberately chose to control himself and his power in such a way that you could be near him and touch him and know him without being destroyed? Do you see that these are the infinitely great, mind-blowing promises of the gospel? No one disbelieves the gospel because it doesn’t promise enough but because it promises too much … way too much to really take in or fathom. But then again, if the gospel is something the infinite God thought up and did for us, wouldn’t it make sense that it would blow up even our highest finite expectations? And isn’t it heart-stopping good news that He overcomes not only our disbelief but also our futile attempts to find our satisfaction elsewhere by irresistibly drawing us to Himself? If you’ve never thought this way before about God’s offer to you in Christ, think about it. Why would you want to settle for anything less? If you’ve heard it before, but are somewhat stirred up by God’s love for you, take a moment, put your own name in this next verse, and hear from God’s own mouth how He loves you with this incomparable love. “I have loved you, (your name), with an everlasting love; I have drawn you, (your name), with loving kindness” (Jeremiah 31:3). So if you found yourself taken by Twilight like we were, let your God-given desire for infinite love lead you to Christ.

Review Corner: The Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling

After I finished the Lord of the Rings series for the first time as a child I remember putting the final book down and being filled with a poignant sadness because it was over. It was a sadness that was sharp and sweet because it was filled with so much hope. Frodo and the fellowship had won the day and it seemed like everything bad might just "come un-true," but the pain they experienced on the journey left them all scarred in some way and in the end the only place they could turn for solace was in the Grey Havens, to the "far green country and to a swift sunrise."

It was a complicated emotion for a child to feel. In some way or another I've been chasing that feeling ever since.

All my favorite pieces of art capture that sad hope. I take it as a sign that I am not at home in this world and as a promise that this journey that seems like lost wandering is truly a homecoming. I take it as my truest religious sense, which art helps me to awaken. Awake, I am able to look out at the world and see the tragedy of its bondage and long for it too to experience it's promised awakening.

Finishing Harry Potter recently I could not stop thinking about that same sadness. J. K. Rowling has created a story as powerful and original as Tolkien's, awakening the same longings in me for justice and truth, and promising their inevitable fulfillment. It may seem "childish" to react so deeply to a children's book, but, if so, it says more about the world of adults than it does of the world of children.

Each book in the Harry Potter series is a story in and of itself, but each of them contributes to the larger story going on in the whole series, which culminates in the seventh book. If you have not read it yet, let me say that the culmination does not disappoint. Rowling satisfactorily answers the questions she raises, and as you turn the last page of the book you find that you were being prepared for the moment from the very first page of the first book. It all holds together in the most wonderful way like few stories I have read.

Rowling has received much criticism for her books, much of it, I am sorry to say, coming from the Christian community. The stories concern magic and wizards and some have accused Rowling of writing the occult into her books. (Jerram Barrs addresses this concern and more in part one and two of his lectures: Harry Potter and the Triumph of Sacrifical Love. I recommend them.)

It is an important question, because it calls into question the moral value of reading these stories. The first answer one might give is to point out is that while these stories involve magic and wizardry the stories are also happening in a moral world. Evil is shown as being really evil, with disgusting consequences. Rowling makes you love the people you are supposed to love in a moral universe. Harry Potter and his friends are children any parent would want their kids to grow up and be like. They love each other dearly, and, while they are not perfect, the series is full of instances of the reconciliation, redemption, and forgiveness that true community draws out of us. The magic in the Harry Potter series is portrayed as being a tool like any other, neutral in itself. Its goodness or badness depends on the person who uses it.

There is so much to be said about the parallels the themes of the books have with the Christian worldview. They show that evil falls back on itself and bears its own judgment within it. Rowling has written a complex understanding of idolatry into her stories. In the seventh book, Harry comes across a verse of the Bible scrawled into a tombstone which puts voice to one of the books themes. The verse says, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." The verse is like a key to understanding each characters motivations, just as it is in life. The series mirrors the Biblical worldview in that it plays out in a world that has gone terribly wrong, and the drama is the work of putting it to rights again. There is a climax and good wins, however, there are also echoes of a deeper hope beyond death, as another Bible verse on a tombstone suggests, "the last enemy to be destroyed is death."

Finally, you cannot talk about the parallels between Harry Potter and the Biblical worldview without talking about what the books say about the triumph of sacrificial love. In each book Harry sacrifices himself to stop evil from happening to his friends. In this he is a true hero, and, at the end of the series, we find that this is exactly why he is able to overcome. He has as deeper magic than all Voldemort's might, which Voldemort does not know about. It is the magic of love, and the series portrays the truth of Christ's words when he said, "greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."

I am reminded of what another great english writer, C. S. Lewis, said to a young boy who was worried that he loved Aslan, Lewis's mythical lion in the Narnia series, more than he loved Jesus. Lewis told the boy that his love for Aslan was the same thing as his love for Jesus, that Aslan could help him love Jesus better. The Harry Potter series makes me love Jesus more and draws me to worship God because of his gifts to writers like Rowling and for seeing the Great Drama played out in miniature on the page.

I recommend the books to you and to your children. I will certainly read them to mine.

Theology and Its Abuses (1)

The value of theology is a topic seen before on this blog, but I want to take two posts to speak to the dangers surrounding theology, both in neglecting it on the one hand, and abusing it on the other. The first post will make a case for why theology is something every believer should love dearly. The next will point out some ways that theology can be abused and cause our love to fail.

It can be a difficult topic. Especially right now, when so often you hear the word theology used as if it were a dirty word, as if the Christian life were really about things that theology couldn't help the believer attain. On the other hand, in making the case for a love for theology, it is easy to fall into the opposite distortion, that of believing that the Christian life is solely about bare knowledge and little else. Theology is the knowledge of God, but in a fallen world even it can be twisted in the hearts of sinful people.

But an answer can be given. The point is not to err on either side, but find the theology that Jesus knew, that made him both incredibly loving and incredibly committed to truth. Living where we do it is easy to forget that those two things are not mutually exclusive, but in the gospel they are not. So pursue that theology. Here are a few other reasons to love theology:

1. We are "bent inwards": We are fallen people living in a fallen world. We not only sin, but we tend to sin. Left alone we will not remain static, we will slowly deteriorate. It is because of this that the Christian life is meant to be one of repentance, one of constant correction, one of continuous seeking to know the Lord better and more deeply. To stop is to fail. As Jesus said, he is the vine and we are the branches. The only vines that live are the ones that remain in him. In part, this means remaining in theology. Learning to know the Lord better and come to understand his revelation of himself to a greater degree. In a sense, we are living in a river and to stop swimming is to be swept along. Theology is no different.

2. We don't know what we don't know: Everyone thinks what they know presently is everything there is to know. Sure we "know" we don't know everything, but it is easy to think we have basically enough. Then we learn and realize how much we have been missing. The new knowledge really does change the way we live in ways that we are happy to have. It is like living in a large, dark room with a narrow spotlight above you. The light illuminates a circle of ground around you and you make the mistake of thinking that this is all you need, but there are things out there in the darkness that you really need. Then you leave the room and go and live your life, love, suffer, and grow, and then when you return the circle of light has expanded and there are all sorts of wonderful things that you did not know about that are now illuminated. In a sense, you don't know what you don't know until you know it. The same is true of God, who is infinite and who every new bit of knowledge is our delight. If this is really our human position, why would we not continue pursuing knowledge of the Lord, and trying to make the how much of him we can see expand?

3. Theology is not an abstract concept: The word "theology" is so often synonymous with the word "obsolete" or "elitist." It is used as a catch all for ideas and concepts that are esoteric or unnecessary. But this is an unfortunate glitch in the language, saying more about us than about theology. Theology is not abstract, it is incredibly practical. To take an example, when I learned more about the sovereignty of God in salvation (sometimes the classic example of theology that doesn't connect to real life) it changed the way I forgive, the way I pray, the way I suffer, love, date, conflict, hope, plan, shop, etc. It changed everything. There was a connection for me between things that are true of God and the way I could live my life.

4. You cannot avoid making a theological statement: Sometimes just "loving Jesus" is offered as an alternative to getting immersed in theological debates, but even "just loving Jesus" is a theological statement. The point is to follow Jesus, but Jesus is only the starting point and all the 360 degrees to move from that point are only determined by theology. How can you even begin to answer the question of what it means to following Jesus without entering the realm of theology? If you are going to have to do it anyway, you may as well be as sure as possible where you are following him is where he is actually going. Or to put it another way, how could you possibly hope to know how to follow without knowing the beliefs about God that he was following?

5. Theology is reality: 90% of the problem people have with theology and doctrine comes in the definition. It is easy to simply define theology as impractical things that theologians argue about. How many angels can fit on the head of a pin? Infralapsarian? Supralapsarian? Etc. However, if you define theology as the Bible seems to most of the problems vanish. The Bible puts theology for as simply the knowledge of the way the world actually is. Theology is reality. If that's true then it makes no more sense to stop pursuing it than an ostrich putting its head in the sand and imagining it is safe.

6. You can know truly without knowing fully: No, you cannot know everything there is to know about God. Yes, there are areas of theology that are mystery. What else is there to expect when you are dealing with an infinite being and doing your reasoning with a finite mind? This is not a reason not to love theology. Because the sidewalk ends is no reason not to walk to the end of it, especially if your right worship of God depends on going as far as you can. Sometimes you will even be asked to take a step over the edge and trust that, though the jurisdiction of your reasoning has come to an end, you will still be upheld. Because we cannot know God fully does not mean that we cannot know God truly. I would say that I know my friends, but not that I know everything there is to know about them. God has revealed himself to us in our own language. He speaks to us in ways we can understand and tells us things that we can trust are true.

7. We are commanded to: Simply put, the Bible is full of commands to persevere in our effort to understand God better. It is filled with warnings of the danger to those who do not. It calls those who would teach lies wolves hungry to devour the flock. It calls those who would teach faithfully shepherds willing to lay down their lives for the flock. Paul warns Timothy to persevere in his doctrine because doing so would save himself and his hearers. It is difficult to put it in higher terms than the Bible puts it.

8. Theology is a mosaic: If theology is reality and it is practical, then theology is a mosaic. It is not about "accessories" vs. "the basics." Rather, each piece, like a mosaic, brings us closer to seeing more clearly the face of the father. Because theology is practical the shape of the theology is the shape of your life, because your life flows down out of your picture of God. We spend our lives placing bits of understanding on that mosaic and growing in our understanding of who God is. That is the work of theology and the grace of it. It is the promise that God has revealed himself and when we come to know and worship him rightly our lives will flourish.

Art Wednesday: Christian Art & Academia (2)

Last Wednesday the post about Christian art and academia left many questions unanswered. One unexplored area was the idea of aesthetics. An aesthetic in art, in short, is a way of seeing art, a certain set of questions to ask of a work of art, a set of convictions about what makes good art and what makes bad art. It is a body of ideas that shapes a body of art.

To make an abstract idea more concrete lets take some concrete examples of other aesthetics in the art world. Impressionism, in the history of painting, is an aesthetic. The Impressionists had certain convictions about what made good paintings and what made bad paintings and then took out their canvases and made art in line with those convictions. Paintings made in line with the Impressionistic aesthetic have visible brush strokes, emphasize the changing qualities of light, often choose ordinary things as their subjects. It is a body of work that is all unified by a common body of ideas.

Aesthetics generate art.

An aesthetic is a canopy under which new art can grow. It is a frame which gives a structure for new artists to build on. It is a worldview. And all of our creations are simply products of our worldview. Impressionism was an idea created Impressionistic artists, as people came to share the convictions of the first Impressionists they in turn created Impressionistic art, which in turn fed the cycle all the more. The feminist aesthetic provided the resources for artists to create work in line with the priorities of feminist criticism. And so on. The Black Arts Movement gave rise to Amiri Baraka and Maya Angelou. Ansel Adam's convictions about what made a good landscape photograph spawned a generation of Ansel Adams photographers. There is a reason why every fantasy novel has echoes of The Lord of the Rings. People make creations in line with the ideas that have shaped them.

If there is to be robust Christian art there must be a robust Christian aesthetic. Christian artists must have the resources to come to any work of art and say something about it from a Christian perspective. And this something must go beyond the level of "it doesn't have a clear moral" or "this poem is not about Jesus." Those considerations do not make good art. When there is a thoughtful, informed aesthetic to unify Christian artists there will be thoughtful, informed Christian art.

This is why the question of how Christian art came to be as it is is so complicated. It not only a question of changing the art itself, but of changing the ideas behind the art. It is a question of scholarship and criticism. It is changing the way we answer the question "What makes for good Christian art?" to reflect the depth of Creators creativity and all the powers he has given artists to say something true about this world we find ourselves in. Until we can achieve that good Christian art will be only for those artists who have the wit or luck to figure out what it means for them to be a Christian and an artist on their own.

If this is the fate of Christian art then the Church will leave huge fields of the world God has made barren of the seeds of redemption that may arise when Christian artists pour themselves into the world for the sake of the world's flourishing.

Why Christians Should Care for Creation

Tragically, Christianity has not always taught people to care for and take care of the earth. Often, it has been quite the opposite. How have we gotten to the place where Christianity would be seen as the enemy by environmentalists? Sadly, this is an area where non-believers have led the Church. But didn't God make this earth? Doesn't care for it? (Read Psalm 65, Psalm 8, Psalm 19. David cannot say enough about the Lord's glory he sees in nature) God sees the world as a good in its own right, not as our expendable playground. If that is true, then why has the Church failed at this point? Part of being sanctified is coming to care for what the Lord cares about. That includes the earth and everything in it.

Here are some ideas that have been benchmarks to me in my own journey to see the glory of the Lord in the earth he has made:

1. Understanding size as God does: God's infinitude, paradoxically, has not made him less conscious of the tiny things, but more. He dresses the flowers and gives the sparrows grain. He waters the fields. Every growing blade of grass has its life in him. He did not make a complex machine that he turned on and then watched it operate. That is not the Biblical God. The Bible depicts a God who is intimately involved in his creation, knitting his creatures together in their mothers wombs. Bringing molecules of water to hidden seeds. We tend, however, to judge by size. We give out attention to great things, thinking it somehow lesser to care for the sparrows, or the streams, or the grass. Unless we reevaluate our notion of what greatness means we run the risk of calling common things God calls wonderful and failing to steward the whole earth.

2. Creation praises God: There are moments in the Bible that the earth is personified and often when it is it is singing for joy. In Psalm 19 the heavens tell of the glory of God. In Psalm 65 the hills clothe themselves with flocks and the valleys deck themselves with grain and they shout and sing together for joy. When the Pharisees tell Jesus to quiet the crowds his response is that if the crowds are hushed the stones themselves will burst into song. As Hopkins said, "the earth is full of the glory of God." If we cannot see it or if it does not move us, that is no fault of the earths. It's our eyes that can't see and our ears that can't hear and our slow hearts that won't be moved. If we will listen as the Bible does we can learn truth about God through what he has made. Paul seems to indicate in the first chapter of Romans that if we do not, we will be held accountable for it.

3. We are all connected: God has made a system, not a collection of isolated objects that do not influence one another. To care for the what he has made you must begin to see those connections. This network he has made is the means by which he cares for all life on earth. The sun makes the rain evaporate and it forms clouds. The spin of the earth makes wind. The clouds move to thirsty places and waters them. The rain and the sunlight makes plants grow. Things eat the plants. Things eat what eats the plants. Those nutrients come to us. We die and return to the soil and the cycle runs on. Being the planets rulers does not mean we must try to make ourselves free from the cycles God made, nor that we have no debt to it. Rather, we must understand its delicate inner workings and work to preserve it. If we have unbalanced some part of this planet, we must work to set it right, or we will suffer because we are still living within the connection and what we do effects us as well.

4. Heaven will be a restored earth: The attitude of "its all going to burn anyway" so it doesn't matter how we treat it comes from a misunderstanding of what this earth means. The material world is not fading away, nor is it somehow subordinate to the purely spiritual. God made the material and it delights him. He is going to restore it. Plants, the sky, bodies, the sea, and all the rest of the wonderful mosaic of the ecosystem will live forever to the praise of his glory. This reminds me of a curious quote by Martin Luther. When asked what he would do if he was sure the earth would end the following day his response was, "Plant a tree." Will the things we do in this earth endure, purified? Will this earth awaken from its sleep and groaning and shake off the accumulated brokenness that has built up on top of it like snow in this long winter? If God calls each star by name into the sky, will he call their names into restoration? And a sobering thought: Jesus bore his scars after Easter. Will this world bear its scars after it's Easter? Will it make us mourn?

5. We have become disconnected from the earth and it has led to sadness: It is a fact of this world that it has become easier to live a life disconnected from this world and from each other and this has led to so many things that Christians should oppose. We ought not only fight the fruits of injustice, but also try to change it at its roots. If a disconnections from the earth is at the root, then we are obliged to do something about it. If my lifestyle contributes to the worsening of someone else's life, what is the burden on me to change the way I life. It is a mark of the world we live in that injustice and the care of the earth are tied. Those connections are complicated so let me tell a story by way of example. I was recently in Harmons, Jamaica. Harmons is a small valley of about 2,000 people. Most, if not all, live below the poverty line. Few are consistently employed. Some years ago, a mining company took interest in Harmons. The soil of Jamaica is rich in bauxite, a key component in the making of aluminum. The mining company began to buy up land in Harmons. They approached families that had lived for generations on top of the land they wanted to mine. They offered them money in exchange for their land. Some sold and moved, others did not. Those who did not move found themselves living in the middle of a strip mine. You see, the mine coud simply force the residents out by digging around their house. Years later the company is still in Harmons and has left great pink scars on the formerly green hillsides. Many families have been uprooted. The land will not be restored except by God's slow processes. Someone once said that you know you are poor if you can't stop people from taking things from you. Seems true in Harmons. What does this have to do with a disconnection from the earth? What is happening in Harmons is a sign of what the world wants and what it values and what we think the earth means. Our disconnection from the earth has enabled the modern world to think of the earth chiefly in terms of what it can offer us, what we can extract out of it. But that is not how God thinks of it. To God it is simply a joy as it is. Seeing the earth as God does is an act that subverts the worldview that wants to mine the soil and mine the people living on it, and therefore, an act that fights the injustice that results.

6. There is wonder everywhere: Miracles are happening constantly. Christ's first miracle was to turn water to wine. He repeats this work every day through the slower miracle of grapes. For some reason we don't call wine miraculous. There is no reason other than joy that grapes should have the unique ability to make wine. The drama that plays out in one square foot of grass holds as much wonder as the cosmos. It holds incredibly complexity. (For more of the beauty of simple soil read The Omnivores Dilemma by Michael Pollan). We tend to think of mystery as the only source of wonder, but with things God makes, that is not the case. Wonder increases with knowledge. The smallest bits of God's world contain incredible beauty.

7. Simply put, we are commanded to: Our first parents were given a charge to subdue the earth and multiply upon it, but this is not a mandate to destroy. This verse has often been misunderstood as being a license to kill, so to speak. Subduing means something closer to the work of gardening than it does the work of conquest. It is here to serve us, but we are also here to serve it as stewards with wisdom. Our dominion is care-taking. We are to use the world to our purposes, but all our purposes are to foster the flourishing of the world.

Art Wednesday: Christian Art & Academia

The story of Christian art is a complicated one, and anyone trying to discover how it came to settle into such a low grade in our present day (although, any time you say this you have to provide a caveat that there are many Christians in every field who are thinking well about their art and producing wonderful work, but they are the exception rather than the rule) has to see it as a combination of many factors. Without a doubt, one key factor that brought us to where we are is Christianity's exile from academia.

To some this might seem like a non-sequitur. What does the world of academia have to do with Christian art? A lot. If you look at general cultural trends in history the pattern emerges that culture is created at the top, and trickles down to the general population. Postmodernism was a subject of philosophy papers 50 years before it was on MTV. In folklore the understanding used to be that the "lore" of the folk arose from the folk themselves, but that isn't the understanding anymore. Now it is believed that the lore, or culture, of a people flows out of a relatively smaller group of social elites and then diffuses into the general population. Wendell Berry, thinking about this from the slightly different angle, said that the country gives the city food and the city gives the country culture. It could be said that academia gives the world its mind.

I make this point to say that academia occupies a powerful post in any culture. There is a sense in which, the thoughts that the academics think, the culture will think. Academics carve out intellectual space which people can live and create in.

One of the reasons why we find little space for Christian art is that there is not space for it in the academy. Religion, as it is commonly portrayed, is seen to rub against the grain of what the academy is about at its most fundamental levels. Science and understanding is about objective fact, testable truth, and knowledge free from the superstition of religion. Religion is seen as undermining knowledge and inquiry, let alone creativity and art. This is an unfortunate mistaken notion.

Christianity has massive resources for careful thinking and careful artistry, but that will not be shown until Christians begin to think and create well. For this reason Christians in academia should be celebrated and supported rather than, as they often are, told to go into the "ministry." Christianity has resources within it to claim Christ's lordship over every inch of life, including the academy.

In this, as in any area of this broken world that we hope to redeem, the fallenness will only be beaten back by God's people entering a place incarnationally and serving it faithfully and creatively. If we hope to reach a culture, we have to go to where the culture is made. Then, perhaps, believers will learn to think well and apply it to their art (and every place God calls them) and the notion of Christian art will begin to change from a marketing scheme to something closer to a fountain of creativity mirroring the infinitely creative one in whose image we are made.

This American Life: Trying to Believe

This past Christmas a story swept the internet about a football coach at a Christian high school in Texas who inspired his team’s fans to root for the opposition: a team from the local juvenile correctional facility. Among the thousands of emails that the coach received in response to his actions, one stood out to him. Trisha Sebastian mentioned her loss of faith, and coach Hogan got a message from God that he was meant to bring her back. They have a phone conversation which she records. Recently, Ira Glass, of This American Life, interviewed Trisha about the conversation and her impressions afterward. You can listen to the interview at thislife.org.

I was listening to the episode in the background while actually paying attention to something else and found that I had to put everything else down and listen closely. The interview is arresting. Listen to the whole thing to hear the clips from the radio conversation (the poignancy in the tone of voice during the interview is worth it), but I will put up part of the transcript from the second half of the episode, when Trisha is talking about her feelings about the conversation with Coach Hogan. It is worth the listen. For all the sincerity on both parts Trisha, a "lapsed catholic" who left the faith after her close friend died of cancer, yet who secretly wishes that she could find a way to return, and Coach Hogan, an articulate, confident Christian, cannot find a way to communicate with one another. Trisha left the conversation with the same questions she entered it with, and was disillusioned by the way, in her mind, Coach Hogan was trying to convince her of something rather than compassionately understand her.

The interview:

Ira Glass (narrating): ...When they finally do get off the phone they are both friendly, but they both also seem a little disappointed. Trisha and I sit down to talk about how she thinks it went:
Trisha: It was totally not what I expected. I was thinking, "Ok. Here is my chance to speak to a man who really believes in God and find out the answers to these burning questions I have." You know, I have been struggling with this grief that I feel for my friends death and I thought that he would be able to counsel me and console me and what happened instead was that he basically brought out argument after argument saying that the theory of evolution is contradicted by a seventh graders textbook and...
I: Oh I see, he was trying to argue with you about the existence of God instead of trying to comfort you.
T: Yeah, I think that was it. There were times when I completely warmed up to him and then he says stuff like what he said earlier [in the recording] about Hitler and truth. One of the jokes my friends have is the minute you pull Hitler out in any argument you automatically lose. That completely turned me off towards him. And now I am still left with all these questions.
I: Is there any small part of you that thought he might be able to put the religious message in some way that would finally make sense to you.
T: Yes.
I: You did hope that?
T: I really did hope that. Deep down, and I have said this to so many friends of mine, I really want to believe again.
I: So you did want him to bring you back to God.
T: Maybe. Possibly. Most likely.
I: But the way that he was doing it wasn't a way that really talked to you?
T: No. No.
I: I wonder if the problem with that was just the way he was going about it and the arguments he was using, or I wonder if there is actually nothing that anybody could say to make you believe this thing that now you find yourself not believing.
T: I don't know. If someone were to just tell me, "This is why Kelly died." and they were able to relate it back to God, I would probably respond to that better.
I: And when you asked Coach Hogan this, what did he say?
T: We never got to that point. We never got to that point. I couldn't get him there. I couldn't ask him the questions I really wanted to ask.
I: But what if it is as simple for people who really believe in God, that God takes different people at different times and that doesn't mean that God doesn't have some plans for you.
T: That makes more sense to me than anything he said in our conversation.
I: That's very sad, because I actually don't believe in God.

When I listen to the interview I found myself thinking about how easy it is, when you believe that what you believe is the truth, to make the mistake of thinking that all someone needs is to believe themselves is to read the textbook, so to speak. But that was not true in Trisha's case. Yes, she needed truth. It is what she craved, in fact, but she needed truth with flesh on it. She needed compassion. She needed someone to understand her, understand her pain, understand the experiences she had that drove her away from the faith, and speak only after that was achieved. She needed someone to listen for a long time and then speak so that when he or she spoke their words would be like "an apple of gold in a setting of silver."

If you love the truth, you will tell it, but it is also true that the telling often cannot be so simple as just saying the words. Sometimes you will have to tell it in the living. Doesn't the fact of Jesus bend us toward this kind of love. Here is a God who did not shout from heaven, but was born as a baby. He gave us a book so that we might have it for all times, but he also gave us his body. He learned a language and a culture and made friends and gave himself up while he lived, and also while he died for people. The more that gospel gets into us the more we will live like he did. In this as in everything the gospel bends us towards one another in costly love. It is in that context of sacrifice and intimate knowledge that our words have their most powerful moment.

Review Corner: The Omnivore's Dilemna by Michael Pollan

I approach most books like this with caution. Why? Because they have a mission. They’re out to change me, change the way I live, change the way I see the world. And that sometimes results in a brand new and rather annoying discomfort with the way I already see the world, and the way I already live within it. Usually I don’t want to hear there’s anything wrong with it. Who does? Who really wants to forsake convenience for a cause?

But The Omnivore’s Dilemma is refreshing. It’s not pushy. But it is frank. The first line says, “Air-conditioned, odorless, illuminated by buzzing fluorescent tubes, the American supermarket doesn’t present itself as having very much to do with Nature. And yet what is this place if not a landscape (manmade, it’s true) teeming with plants and animals?”

It’s this question that propels Michael Pollan, a New York Times columnist and writer, forward. Where is all of our food —fresh avocados in the middle of winter or perfectly uniform chicken breasts — coming from? How is it grown and raised, exactly? And more importantly, is it grown and raised in a way that we, as humans with our unique role in creation, can feel proud of?

The book is broken down into three parts. Pollan starts with corn, just one kernel of it in a field in Iowa, and tries to track it into our food (a weird and shocking amount of corn appears in our processed foods, non-food products, and diets of animals who were never meant to eat it. At one point you learn a chicken nugget is more corn than it is chicken). You learn about industrial farming, the influence of tech-heavy corporations, genetically modified crops, land use and more.

The “grass” section in the middle of the book is by far my favorite. That’s when Pollan meets Joel Salatin, a colorful character who goes determinedly against the pressure to produce more at a greater cost to the earth. The way Joel puts it on his Web site, he’s in the “redemption business: healing the land, healing the food, healing the economy, and healing the culture.” A Christian, Joel’s farm practices are amazingly humane and work with the earth instead of against it. Salatin is so refreshing, especially in comparison to the depressing feedlots Pollan explores — where cows are crammed into tiny lots, stand in so much of their own manure it’s poisonous, and are force-fed hundreds of pounds of corn daily instead of getting to graze on grass.

In the third section Pollan learns about hunting and gathering, and actually prepares a meal from ingredients he grew or hunted himself. The entire experience is very personal. The guy is someone like us; he’s as modern and addicted to city living as the rest of us, if not more, and translates his experiences and struggles and questions and doubts right onto the page.

The good thing about Pollan is that he loves food. So the book isn’t filled with angry criticism and pointing the finger (an unfortunate result of some people are passionate about change). Because he loves food so much he questions our relationship to it. He calls our nation one with an eating disorder, and wants to see it restored.

Wendell Berry wrote in his essay, “Think Little,” “In this state of total consumerism…all meaningful contact between ourselves and the earth is broken. We do not understand the earth in terms either of what if offers us or what it requires of us, and I think it is the rule that people inevitably destroy what they do not understand.”

How should we view our relationship to the earth and its creatures? Modern Christians, looking forward to heaven, all but destroyed it because they thought it didn’t matter. But the Lord tells us that this is the earth He has created and will restore. And we’re hurting it. The Bible says the whole creation is groaning (Romans 8:22). We should do everything in our limited power, in the face of that, to care for it. After all, it’s a gift. God has given this beautiful, complex, amazing place to enjoy. He created plants to grow and nourish us. He gave us animals to care for (and certainly eat…at least in my opinion).

It’s confusing to approach this at a time when we wouldn’t know how to grow our own food if someone asked us to. The food appears like magic. We don’t need to all go back to the land and restart an agrarian society — that’s not the point. But as stewards of this earth, it’s our responsibility to question our accepted and very convenient lifestyles and find out: Was that chicken you ate treated ruthlessly, or was it humanely raised with respect to its part in God’s creation? Is the salad mix I buy packaged by a company that’s stripping the land to extract more and more and more from it, without rotating crops or giving it time to rest? These questions are difficult but powerful, and should change us daily.