What's Not So Smart About the Smartphone

The smartphone has effectively taken the place of the Holy Spirit in my waking life these past few months I've started using it. It is difficult to be spiritually awake when it is within arm's reach. I find it takes the space in my spirit where prayer could otherwise be. I reach out for it and I reach out through it to search and discover. The gaze of the soul is always searching and pondering. The question is where we direct our attention. I find myself no more rested or filled when searching the surface of what the smartphone gives me access to because as a tool, the phone only offers access to surface things.

This is troubling when presentness is so very dear. The capacity to be immediate and present has been most important in leading worship, sharing a meal, teaching, and it is the soul of my current training in spiritual direction. There is very little presence in the smartphone, little to share.

As a venue for social media, the smartphone effectively facilitates a kind of voyeurism that is not unlike looking at porn. I worry that the bulk of my so-called social interactions are so hygienic and controlled. I mean the viewer's control. Real immediate interaction is messy and unpredictable, sometimes awkward and sometimes delightful. Real interaction usually requires work. Social media, like porn, makes you think you are experiencing intimacy when you are not. And further, it seems that social media may be as addictive for some as porn is for others.

So there's my bummer reflections. Maybe you have better experience than me? Congrats then.  In the past I tried to write too much in this space, to foresee all the angles and arguments. I'm going to try really hard to keep my posts tight by avoiding the temptation to be the last word on anything.

Conversation w/ Dustin Re: Passion 2013

Dustin, I'm thankful for you as a friend and learning counter-part personage. I might not be able to do my prayers with a koine greek New Testament in the morning like you, but I think I've read at least as much Jeremy Begbie. Ahem....

Your comments on The Twelve guest blog are generous and thoughtful. If anything you demonstrate to those outside of the contemporary worship and evangelical circles that there are some inside who are self-critical and wrestling to get it right. I fear that most on the outside assume the contemporary evangelical scene is a loud, popular-culture-acquiescing monolith. You burst that bubble. I pray I do too.

And I hope that your candid reflections also demonstrate to some (perhaps the students I lead) that my initial reflections on Passion 2013 are not as heavy handed as they might seem. As I've said before to you, how can we love the church enough to critique it?

Thanks again for reading and sharing. Much love!

Thoughts on the Passion Conferences, An Addendum

In the 11^th hour of Thursday night I was asked to guest blog for The Twelve, a blog associated with Perspectives, a Journal ofReformed Thought. In the wee hours I put down some thoughts about the Passionworship movement since I’d been thinking about their conference that day. I want to offer one more reflection on my friend Charlie Hall here that wouldn’t fit in the brief word length of the other piece.

On the last day of the Passion conference I attended in the late ‘90s, I walked down to the stage with the college students who were with me from the church where Charlie and I were leaders. After seeing his face and goatee so massively displayed on the enormous video screens above, it was a relief to watch him turn to us and retreat from the many other conference attendees/fans who were vying for his attention.

The stage was some five or six feet high. Charlie sat down on its edge with his legs crossed to say hello. I have never seen Charlie be anything on stage that he isn’t off stage. The same was true for that conference. Still, it was good to look my brother in the face and know him. The surreality of the stage and the enormity of the venue were finished like waking from a funky dream, and there he was again, a bona fide human being.

While I don’t keep up with him much anymore, all that I know and continue to witness of Charlie’s ministry continues to inspire. He is an honest relief. While my Reformed and Charismatic selves are conflicted, Charlie has pressed on for a couple decades with a simplicity and purity and a thoughtfulness that lends gravity and trustworthiness to Passion. I get overwhelmed with all that can come off as sensational, emotional and sentimental in contemporary worship circles, and then there’s Charlie and Dustin and Quint, still doing their thing.

A Dose of Techno-Pessimism: The Problem(s) With the Smartphones

It's up online here.

I'm glad to get some of these thoughts down. I'm really interested in those who disagree with me and might be optimistic about these things. Please, please continue the conversation in the comments below or email me.

Mysticism vis a vis Theology

Recently I posted a series of relatively benign political statements on facebook. I guess all the heat of the Michigan primary boiled something in me. I felt like I was going to pop, so I tried to offer a smattering of 10 political thoughts that could hopefully be so wide ranging that they would either stir up some conversation (perhaps something like, "Josh, what do you mean by ________") or so wide ranging that it wouldn't be easy for someone to just pin me down to one club or team or box or caricature.

Attempting a political statement that way in our day and age of internet and twitter vitriol seemed instinctual and not premeditated. Upon reflection I've realized that the wide range of political thoughts is a kind of dialectical polemic. This is the way I've learned to take my theology, so it's no surprise that my politics are eking their less than formed nature in a similar way.

A dialectic is a statement of point and counter point in a manner of a 'both/and' summation rather than an 'either/or' where two counter points either cancel one or the other or both points altogether. It is a way of looking at two sides of a coin rather than the yin and yang, yet it does lean toward more of an Eastern way of thinking rather than a Western set of rational categories. Christianity, after all, began in a Hebraic tradition before it was spread throughout Europe.

Right there we might begin to identify a dialectic: East vis a vis West. The way I identify Christianity as originally of the East might lead one to read me as saying, "East good. West bad." This would be the same confusion and error that is made when we pit faith against reason or religion against science or the imagination versus reason for that matter (Romanticism against the Rationalism).

It seems just as overly simplistic to pit Mysticism against Theology or contemplative prayer against doctrinal formation. I'm sad there continues to be so much baggage with what people call "religion." It is popular to say, I am spiritual but I'm not religious. Yet this is by definition misguided. Anthropologically speaking a human being is essentialy made up of cult and culture. 'Cult' is the ordering of our spiritual being. 'Culture' is the ordering of our physical being. Even atheism is cultic in its negative view. Hermits, likewise, are just as involved in a kind of culture as the most cosmopolitan. They just chose to order their earthly existence in solitude. So the most mystical of persons are also doing a kind of theology, it just may not be as defined as other theologically minded people would like.

I will say, however, that theologians of any era have always been in desperate need of prayer just like the rest of us. Orthodoxy, the pursuit of straight, true doctrine is also the pursuit of straight and true worship. Ortho, as in orthodontist or straight teeth, plus doxa, as in glory or worship. Theology and doxology must be married. 

I am currently on a journey that is leading me into a joyful discovery of what might be characterized as the mystery of God's presence as revealed through vigil and prayer. My life is being transformed. I admit on one hand, that my theological formation does at times act like a kind of doctrinal radar scanning for half truths and mistruths. Richard Rohr, for example, is a resource I've just barely begun to explore. So far he has been very helpful. In the video below I completely sympathize with his sentiment that all seminaries might better be transformed into places that teach pastors to pray. This new season includes a bit of grieving. Little of my training has taught me how to come to the well and drink. Further, the work culture of vocational ministry itself contains little guarantee that a pastor will have access to time and rhythms for prayer and meditation unless he or she goes to great lengths to create that time. So the likes of Richard Rohr or Parker Palmer or Thomas Merton are a healing balm.

However, appreciating the kind of stream of Christian spirituality that Richard Rohr champions does not necessitate the abandonment of doctrine. An author and teacher like Rohr seems to fall into the prophetic tradition that rails against empty tradition in search of the true, "you honor me with your lips, but your hearts are far from me." Such mystical portions of the church do avoid an overemphasis on naming God, "the one before whom our words recoil." Yet it is interesting that the Roman Catholic church has always sustained within its fellowship some of the breadth between the Franciscan and the Jesuit, between the contemplative and the scholastic. Can such mystical teaching lead to confusion and even heresy? Sure. You can find many examples of mystical transgressions throughout the history of the church.

Yet, there is also such a danger in merely toting the doctrinal line as it were. Theological correctness can lend itself to stagnant, institutionalized, the-form-of-without-the-substance-of religiosity. I did a little search last night of "richard rohr" and "heresy" and found stuff like this "appraising ministries" site. I don't have much of an appetite for watchdog 'ministries.' After all it is the King of England that carries the title of "defender of the faith." I don't want it. Yes we are admonished to test spirits and to not be led astray (1 John 4, Ephesians 4 etc.), yet I am leery of giving too much attention to people and ministries who feel their primary calling is to sniff out and root out false teaching. In my experience these people are more interested in their own power and their control. They lead us toward fear and panic when the grace of God in truth leads us to peace and charity, patience and surrender and trust.

While my theological training can function as a kind of radar, the greater benefit of it is how it has led me to this place of prayer and how it guides me in it. My two knowings of God are becoming one. They work together instead of against each other. The Trinitarian godhead is the One in whom my heart is found. Further, I don't know if my faith would still be intact if it weren't for the clarity of my doctrinal formation. Who knows how the Spirit works? I have watched friends lose their faith, distance themselves from the Church, stray into dark clouds of confusion and suffer tremendously. These words have been an anchor and a harbor:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
    the Maker of heaven and earth,
    and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
    born of the virgin Mary,
    suffered under Pontius Pilate,
    was crucified, dead, and buried;

He descended into hell.

The third day He arose again from the dead;

He ascended into heaven,
    and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
    from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost;
    the holy catholic church;
    the communion of saints;
    the forgiveness of sins;
    the resurrection of the body;
    and the life everlasting.

Amen.

Watch Richard Rohr on PBS. See more from Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

The Posture of Criticism - Discernment Vis a Vis Judgement

I got the cold/flu about five days ago so these posts are coming out more slowly than I'd hoped. I'll pick up on the critique of "How He Loves" soon. I know that taking a step back to cover a few topics like what follows below might not be as exciting of a read as if I were to keep chipping away, critiquing some more songs. I know this post may seem tedious in comparison, a kind of disclaimer, but I'm more concerned about how and why I'm being critical of contemporary worship music than just coming off as your dime a dozen cynic. I've spent years repenting of the sin of cynicism.

Life Lesson #101: Scoffing at what is wrong is easy. Loving the church and contending for it is hard.

With 100 some hits on the previous post (Critique of "Your Love Is Strong") in less than two days--for this little blog--I must have hit a nerve, especially at Hope College. I remember my freshman year at Wheaton was full of many late night debates in the dorm. I tried to avoid them or I mostly listened, but a few times I dove right in. We had disagreements about everything from the classic Protestant conundrum of the 'free will' versus 'predestination,' the naive dichotomy of  'secular music' versus Christian; we questioned whether speaking in tongues is for Christians today, and which was right independent or denominational churches? Baptists or Reformed? Dispensationalism versus covenant theology? It was a nerve wracking translation of ourselves from our safe, parochial home churches and youth groups to a comparatively more ecumenical academic community. Some conversations would go on for hours with new voices adding into a conversation throughout the night. So many strong, intelligent opinions and experiences held with Christian vigor. Freshman year could be painful and awkward at times.

My assumption is that there are more reading who disagree with me, and I want to encourage such disagreement. There is nothing wrong with having differences of opinion. After all, our differences will not matter too much if we actively remember how much more we have in agreement. Disagreement, doubt and questions are fine, good and healthy even. The greater concern is not so much about the convictions we arrive at, but the charitable, Christ-like way we engage one another in conversation. I'm not saying that our ultimate conclusions are not important or relative but that our convictions are shaped by the journey we make to identify and confirm those convictions. Our ideas and beliefs are for better or worse shaped by our context.

A disagreement can cut deep into the ego and threaten what each of us believe is real and true. To do theology, to be a part of the church, to be committed to the growth of our shared understanding of God and his purposes, we have to wear these things carefully with humility. I admit that I can be weak in the wrong moment. I know the temptation to strive to be right and to have control. A large obstacle is that we often approach God like we might math. We tend to believe that if each of us could just become objective and get outside the question at hand, then surely we could all come to perfect agreement. But our ideas are not so much shaped by our rational minds in a kind of objective, abstract bubble. A conviction is held in the heart as much if not more so than the mind. A conviction is shaped by our character, by our affections, insecurities and fears. It is a wonder God has revealed himself to us at all.

St. Augustine has been my favorite model of how I might posture myself when daring to use words to explain or understand the things of God:

The Confessions Book XI, Chapter I.  O Lord, since eternity is Yours, are You ignorant of the things which I say unto You? Or see Thou at the time that which comes to pass in time? Why, therefore, do I place before You so many relations of things? Not surely that You might know them through me, but that I may awaken my own love and that of my readers towards You, that we may all say, Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised. I have already said, and shall say, for the love of Your love do I this. For we also pray, and yet Truth says, Your Father knows what things you have need of before you ask Him. Matthew 6:8 Therefore do we make known unto You our love, in confessing unto You our own miseries and Your mercies upon us, that You may free us altogether, since You have begun, that we may cease to be wretched in ourselves, and that we may be blessed in You; since You have called us, that we may be poor in spirit, and meek, and mourners, and hungering and thirsty after righteousness, and merciful, and pure in heart, and peacemakers. Matthew 5:3-9 Behold, I have told unto You many things, which I could and which I would, for You first would have me confess unto You, the Lord my God, for You are good, since Your mercy endures for ever. 

Everything that Augustine 'confessed' (a double meaning of confession, both of his sin and his faith) was in accordance with the ordo amoris, the order of love. To paraphrase him, let all that this wretched person has to say about God lead to loving God and each other more abundantly. Our 'theologizing' should lead to doxology. Our talk about God should itself be a kind of worship. 

So while I am practicing critique, I do not believe that the primary role of the Church or a theologian or a pastor is to act as a watchdog. A Christian's primary posture is not critical but doxological. If we are to be critical, it is for the sake of discernment rather than judgement. Jesus' teaching as accounted in Matthew 7:16 and Luke 6:44 is often misquoted as "judge a tree by the fruit that it bears." The English translation is instead most commonly "know" or "recognize" not "judge." In fact, it is interesting that chapter seven opens with "Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgement you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get." "Judge" here is closer to "condemn." It means to separate and divide in the way a court judge pronounces a sentence. To "know" a tree is to be close, to become acquainted with it, to discern its value.

Romans 12:2 contains a very helpful use of "discernment,"

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

This passage is often used to pit Christianity against so-called "worldliness." Such interpretations can lead to a sectarian or isolationist posture to encourage wary watchdogs, alert and on the ready to spot and root out sin. The fruit of such a critical posture is strife and  bitterness. Our hearts become constrained more by condemnation/judgement rather than discernment/judgement. This Romans 12 use of "discern" calls us to practice redemption. To discern is primarily about identifying what is right and good and true rather than pouncing on what is wrong. We discern for the sake of pleasing God and worshiping God. We go into the world, into the fray of confusion with love to dust off and prize the beautiful rather than obsess, control and despise what is broken. We are better as lovers--at least a concerned parent or the biblical caring shepherd rather than the police, the Inquisition or the Gestapo or the acidic talking head politico.

So let me be clear, when I identify what concerns me about the state of the church today, when I ask questions about contemporary worship music, when I write a film, TV or CD review or critique a worship song, I do these things because I want a better love life, I want to worship more freely. If anything, even if you don't agree with me, I pray my teaching, leadership and writings might stir up good conversation and prayer, as Augustine says, "that I may awaken my own love and that of my readers towards You...."

May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to you oh, God. Would you burn away any empty word or thought in the consuming fire of your love. If we have anything worth saying to each other, the those words be yours, eternal, unmovable and filled with your mercy.

Thanks for reading.

Upcoming Posts & A Critique of "Your Love Is Strong"

There are a handful of things I’d like to write about in the next week or so. I’m going to try and push out a few blog posts in the next few days. Thanks to those who read and keep me thinking of better ways to communicate ideas that matter greatly to me, and many thanks to my students for keeping me on my toes too.

Here are the topics I want to get at:

1.     I’d like to follow up on the comment I made in my last post about making too much of art but that rather we should instead focus on being better humans (which implies engagement of the arts). There is much to discuss here. I’m glad to get emails from people who appreciate this concern. Because it seems to others to be a poignant nuance of my way of prioritizing the arts, I’d like to flesh the idea out some more.

2.     Another friend asked me to recall for her some teaching I offered in the past on the distinction between capital “A” Artists and the rest of us who are all created as artists. The idea is that we are all artistic. To be human is to be creative. The question is which of us are called to practice a discipline of art making at more advanced levels with years of training for the sake of vocational, bi-vocational or a-vocational art making. Further thoughts on this will connect to what I want to write about for topic 1 above. Perhaps I can answer both of those in the same post. We’ll see.

*Topics 1 and 2 will need to wait a bit because I want to cover a few topics for my students. These are thoughts that have been growing in response to their questions and our discussions.  This is teaching at its best: when I feel stumped in class and need to step back and rediscover how to communicate what is most important.

3.     I need to more explicitly and unapologetically explain my concerns about some contemporary worship texts. Two songs came up in class this week, “Your Love is Strong” by Switchfoot’s Jon Foreman and “How He Loves Us,” by John Mark McMillan.

4.     Then in another post I need to do a better job of connecting the overarching creedal portions of our class to specific cultural examples—to demonstrate why an inquiry into the ontological framework of the sacrament and Trinity matter to regular worship leading.

CRITICAL THOUGHTS ON “Your Love Is Strong”

First, let me emphatically encourage readers to see this not so much of a bashing of Jon Foreman and more of a case study. I don’t own any Switchfoot records, but I’m a fan. I like “Your Love Is Strong.” I believe that Foreman’s four seasonal EP recordings are fantastic examples of good, thoughtful creativity. However, there is just so much worship music out there, so many great songs that I can afford to be picky.

Second, I don’t expect most readers to initially appreciate the kind of discernment I am modeling here. That is why I teach this class. We generally don’t critique our songs very well if at all. What I’m offering here could make me seem like a crotchety old man, harrumphing around with arms folded and a frown. I’d like to disagree, that loving worship, loving the church and even loving Jon Foreman requires us to be discerning. I wouldn’t go to such great lengths to think through this song if I didn’t like it.

Third, I’ll point out that this is only the second lyric that I have adjusted for pastoral concerns in the almost six years of my ministry at Hope College. I’d never messed with the lyrics in the roughly ten years of worship ministry previous either. The point is that I don’t have a heavy hand. Actually, I do in terms of picking songs in the first place, but that is a whole other discussion.

So, I did a poor job in class of explaining why we have decided to ditch the second verse of this song:

I look out the window.
The birds are composing.
Not a note is out of tune
Or out of place.
I look at the meadow
And stare at the flowers.
Better dressed than any girl
On her wedding day. 

First of all a confession: I can personally appreciate and worship with these words. I can navigate around the strengths and weaknesses of this verse and find meaning. I especially like the first half of the verse and am sad to say goodbye to it. However, the question is not what I personally can worship to. The question is what best serves the spiritual formation of the 1000 give or take a few hundred who join us for worship four times per week.

I think I overemphasized that our decision to nix the verse is squarely because of a response to some women who are frustrated with it. The initial concern begins with whether or not we would like to think that feminine beauty should be reduced to a woman on her wedding day. Is a woman in a wedding dress the definitive aesthetic achievement of a woman?

Arguments for keeping the Foreman lyric:

Argument one: we should not ditch worship songs or portions of a worship text because of a person’s personal quandaries. The worship text isn’t about an individual.  A worship text is about God and so we should all work to focus on the best in a song and not get hung up on a particular word choice, phrase or even a whole worship text.

Argument two: Further, there is no such thing as a perfect worship song, perfect worship service or worship leader. Coming to worship requires us to readily forgive each other when our worship words, leadership, expression and participation do not live up to our personal expectations.

In class I overemphasized that the concern was how this worship passage might elicit personal confusion from young women who join us in fellowship. Yes, it is true; each of us bring our own personal baggage into worship. Our own experience can skew our ability to interpret and appreciate various worship expressions. Yes we must be charitable and forgiving when we run into worship passages that confuse or distract us.

However, in choosing to nix this part of Foreman’s song I am acknowledging that there are certain lines for the sake of a corporate a worship service that I need to guard and watch with discernment.

Arguments for not using the Foreman lyric:

Argument one: I don’t believe that a woman on her wedding day is the proper defining moment of feminine beauty that can properly ‘contextualize’ or contemporize the original Biblical passage the Foreman worship verse is responding to:

Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.

The trouble is that we don’t have royal splendor in North America and so Foreman turns to a wedding to attempt to evoke the same kind of meaning. Wedding day takes the place of King Solomon’s glory. This might seem acceptable especially when we consider that the New Testament uses marriage substantially to illustrate God’s relationship with the church, the bride of Christ.  However, the focus here is not on how the bride of Christ is beautiful now, but more about how the church is being made beautiful. The bride of Christ is making herself ready (Rev 19:7). So it turns out that using the concept of the bride of Christ to defend this lyric is somewhat of a hermeneutical leap.

The trouble is that we have nothing in our culture that can properly help us understand Jesus’ reference to Solomon’s glory. I would personally prefer that worship songwriters had the courage to make specific Biblical references instead of always trying to contemporize. Let’s dare to become biblically literate.

Argument two: Even if we can appreciate the artistic license of Foreman’s lyric and can understand the spirit of what he is trying to convey, consider the lyrics artistic integrity. Here is where subjective enters the discussion. So this is admittedly my weakest point. This lyric is largely sentimental. Read these words together: window, birds, composing, note, tune, meadow, dressed, girl, wedding day. These are the words of a hallmark card. Now this is my subjective reading of the lyrics, and I even think that the great hymn “For the Beauty of the Earth” is prone to such sentimentalism as well. However, I am more willing to sing the hymn because of the gravity of the years and generations who have sung it.

Remember the definition of sentimentalism: emotion for emotions sake. Personally, when I have sung the line I find that images of brides in wedding gowns take greater space in my head than the initial point of the lyric which is the splendor of God’s creation.

Argument three: This argument is contextual to our campus ministry and is my most important. The lyric can idealize marriage and wedding dresses. I am pulling the lyric not so much because of the girls who already are frustrated with it, but for those young ladies who aren’t frustrated with it. I’m pulling the lyric for the many young men who might also have romantic idealizations about a wedding day. I’m pulling the lyric because I know how powerful worship words are to form a persons imagination. I don’t want to pedestalize marriage or brides. As a pastor I don’t want to reinforce the notion that girls are mostly highly valued, most beautiful when they get married. No, a woman in a wedding dress is not the definitive aesthetic achievement of a woman.

Perhaps I wouldn’t be picky about this if I weren’t serving a campus ministry where there is so much pressure on relationships, the temptation to obsess in the search of the one, true love. I spend considerable amount of time and energy trying to help college students learn how to see the opposite sex as a human being first and a potential spouse much, much later.  We have so many layers of confusion that push and pull on our sexuality, it seems easier to avoid language in worship that might perpetuate that confusion. If the rest of this particular lyric had enough weight/value and wasn’t prone to sentimentalism, then perhaps I’d fight for it.

A Good Day: Seeing The Dogs is Like Living Well

Living a day well is akin to paying attention to our dogs. Little Ike and Coen, the last two of a litter of puppies left at the shelter when my wife rescued them. They were so helpless and loveable she couldn’t just pick one. She had to bring home two to surprise me for a Valentine’s Day present four year ago this next February. We figure Ike was picked over because he was the runt with a definitively oversized portion of the “little man syndrome,” meaning that if he isn’t being coddled he can be quite the grump. Coen was picked over because even though he is quite handsome and well proportioned, he is skittish and afraid of silly things like smooth floor tile, heat vents and gutters. We loved these two little fur balls for two years and then somehow in the third year we got distracted. Then we had a baby and now they are always here, ready and eager for our attention if only we had the patience and clarity of heart and mind to give it them. Now living a day well doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ve given love to dogs, but it means that we are in a better posture to.

Prayer must certainly be like this and art and love too. How many gorgeous things surround me that I cannot attend to because I’m busy, self consumed, self important, blind dumb and numb? Again, Annie Dillard. I believe it’s chapter two of Pilgrim At a Tinker Creek. She begins, “I’ve been thinking about seeing.” She tells the story of hiding pennies in crevices and crooks of old trees and along sidewalks as a little girl. She drew arrows on the sidewalk with the words, “treasure this way!” Her point is that there are hidden pennies everywhere in life and creation with arrows and maps pointing the way to treasures but sadly, as she says in her essay “Total Eclipse” in Teaching Stones to Talk, “we are born and bored in a stroke.”

Somehow I got caught up in all this talk about the arts. Lets champion the artist, the misunderstood, the marginalized and fringe, the bohemian, the crafty creative person because (again Dillard) ours is a God who loves pizazz. Sure I love the arts. I just spent an hour reading Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna to my wife until she fell asleep. We’ve been into the latest season of the TV series Damages with Glenn Close and Rose Byrne. It is exciting and somewhat redeemable, a titillating expose of white-collar crime and it’s no small feat to make white collar crime mysterious and riveting. Yet as Susanna began to yawn and apologize for having to ask me to stop reading we had a brief discussion about how much nicer it is to finish the evening with a book rather than a TV show. Definitely. We love the arts. We love Kingsolver’s prose. She makes me want to travel south of the border again soon for pollo frito fresh squeezed juice and la playa. Yet is this really all that much about art itself or it is about being a better human and living a day well?

I say its time we stop talking so much about the arts and begin talking about talking about how to live a day well, how to live better, how to be better humans, and yes this will require the arts but not art as an end in itself but as a means, a kind of training in how to see better.

Kingsolver makes me want to travel south of the border for a proper margarita and carnitas and she makes me want to pay attention to my dogs more. How did they become so boring to me? If my dogs can become boring, then is it possible for me to let my work, my art, my marriage and even my beautiful son become boring too? Yes. Please God forgive us all our boredom. Oh ennui, the noonday demon.

Kate Kooyman gave a beautiful message tonight at the Gathering on sin and forgiveness. In the first third of her message, she unpacked the difference between sin and immorality and how we confuse the latter for the former. Being a sinner isn’t just about specific acts but about an overall dispassion of being turned inward toward self-worship. I’ll add that sin is fundamentally being cut off from the life of God. It is living without the right redemptive perspective of forgiveness and hope, of love and light. Sinfulness is living in the gutter of the darkness of the self.

So art plus redemption can lead us to seeing better? Yep. True, however art by itself will shape and change us but it cannot save us. Art by itself becomes its own idolatrous end; its own party; its own scene that alienates and separates those who get it and those who don’t. The in and the out. But redemptive human creativity is essential to becoming a Christian. My dogs are beautiful little guys. People stop me and remark when I’m with them on a walk. Wow, what beautiful or amazing or cute little dogs! And inside I’m hoping just to get them to poop so we can get back to the house and on to more important things, to my things, to my agenda. I’m a sinner self-consumed. I’m ignoring the blazing colors of the Fall leaves, the ones remaining on the branch and those scattered on the ground. I’m blind to the subtle changes in wind and temperature, the joy of pulling my scarf tighter. I don’t reflect on the month past, the summer past, the winter ahead. I walk a straight boring line from point A to point B to get the job done, to go back inside and be boring again.

This is not all true. I’m being a good Midwestern boy with a guilt complex. I can see. Yesterday I cut our the burning bushes that line the front of our house back so far that they are little bitty stumps of potentiality—that is if I didn’t kill them (they were getting so huge and everything I could find on the mighty internet said burning bushes are resilient). Behind the bushes was a large planters box eight feet long sitting underneath the front windows. Until yesterday you couldn’t see that its paint was peeling away or that the box itself was almost rotted out, a liability I could have left of the spring? The two hour job turned into six. I was forced outside a bit longer. The dogs tied to the railing on our front steps and wow was Ike grumpy with the cats and dogs and children running freely and flagrantly in front of his tied up self. I cut back the bushes. I raked leaves. I removed the flower box. I scraped the flaking paint behind it. I repainted the shake shingles. I raked some more and the sun set. It got colder. We went inside and made French toast with bananas and honey. Then I pet my dogs with Casper. He chased them around the kitchen island a bit. I could see it.

Oh please God, help me see tomorrow.

                                                                                      

Update: Naming It Well

So much is going well. I wish I had the time and the words. I wish I had the gumption too. Everything I want to say and could be said about family, marriage, fatherhood, music, campus ministry, teaching, friendship…trying to speak well about such things feels silly and awkward to name, or at least to name too quickly.

Have you ever had an experience that was so raw and good that you were left reeling dumb and stupid? I asked a poet once if he walked around experiencing his waking life thinking, “now that experience…there is a poem in that.” He said that no, we must first warm our hands around the fire of existence and then later work to find what will emerge in the art.

This is the question of taking our cameras with us on vacation. Walker Percy asks if we spend all our time behind the lens, do we end up missing the experience itself? The loss of creature? Is life merely a photo album we flip through page by page later afterwards? In the context of our contemporary media: is our life the sum total of what we catalogue of ourselves on our blogs and facebook pages?

Yet we do name our experiences. We have to. We need ways to share ourselves. This is what Annie Dillard is working through in her essay, “Total Eclipse.” She says we bluster around the world with a “shovel and a pail, a grammar and a lexicon” working to save our very lives because those things that we do not have words for are lost to us. So the challenge is to use the right words, the best words, to have patience and not name the experience too quickly and perhaps turn to the best of artists and writers and learn from their vocabularies how to better name our remembrances worth remembering.

Yesterday I splurged and purchased a 16 GB memory card for our camera. It’s a point and shoot that was a previous splurge just before Casper was born. It cost a third of our Nikon SDL, but we use it so much more often because it fits in a pocket and because it takes HD videos and has a stereo microphone. We captured Casper’s birth with it. It has captured many important moments. The trouble is of course with hard disk space. We have none left. HD videos are huge. Yesterday, I decided I didn’t care. We need to keep filming Casper. I’ll buy another external hard drive.

So this morning I filmed the ritual of walking up the stairs to get him out of his crib. I filmed a bit of him looking and pointing out the window. I filmed him shoving his face into his blanket and sucking his thumb. I set the camera on a shelf and filmed us reading books before bed. He thinks he is talking now. He opens a book, points at pictures and makes sounds in a cadence that resembles something that could sound like reading. Tonight he went to our bookcase and dragged Maugham’s Of Human Bondage over to Susanna and sat down on her lap for her to read only to find there were no pictures.

I’ll never be a good enough poet or songwriter to capture these moments. Susanna’s second book, Entering the House of Awe, arrived a few weeks ago (and is for sale…you can buy it on Amazon, but if you buy it directly from us…we’ll pocket more money…and that is helpful…email me if you are interested). As a new mom, she hasn’t written more than a few poems in the last year. When the book arrived, I read several poems aloud at the dinner table weeping and made her promise to keep writing if only for me. Perhaps some day after warming her hands on the fire of our beautiful, little boy she will write about him and about us and perhaps she will find the correct, appropriate words to help us remember—not just remember, but to fully experience it.

But in the mean time, I’m using HD video to keep track of these things. Children suddenly speed up time. A baby changes into a toddler too quickly. A year is no longer just a year. It is the difference between an immobile, sleeping sack of eating and pooping flesh and a babbling, temperamental, wide-awake to the world, bonafide human being who can almost run, who you swear is about to utter a sentence demanding more cheese.

My gift and my curse is that I feel everything so deeply. Some people might call it sensitivity or sentimentality or emotionalism. Perhaps it is all three. I think it is a matter of exhaustion. I barely know how to process all that I absorb in a day.

Susanna is out for the evening. I just put Casper to bed a few hours ago and I’m still absorbing the goodness of holding him in the nursery lit only by the glowing mobile I made for him. C.S. Lewis writes in his famous sermon, “The Weight of Glory,” that if we really could behold each other we would see every one of us as princes and princesses. The sheer magnitude of each other’s full being would be almost too much to bear. I believe this is the gift of babies: in their tender state, we get to hold them and gather them up into ourselves in a way that we cannot with any other grown, sophisticated being. Babies are present and available to watch and admire. Teenagers, adults? They are hidden behind layers. We don’t have the right words for them. No words to unlock their mysteries. But babies are plain and raw and available. They are revealed in such plain sight that even the most random of strangers feels the freedom to come up and give them a pinch (which of course bothers the heck out of me when it happens to Casper).

This is what Jesus said about the children, that we must become like one of them to inherit the kingdom. Throw off sophistication. Discard posturing. Repent of pretension. Stop hiding. Risk being known. Forgive others when they misunderstand you. Let yourself be simply present and alive. Rejoice.

Adam and Kristin's Wedding Homily

Published with permission from the good couple. Written out of love for them. Inspired by the need for us to all live more deeply into our marriages and hopefully to help frame marriage properly for some of you who hope to be married some day.

It is good to be single too. I enjoyed being single for 29 years!
......................................

Read July 22, 2011

“He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Colossians 1:17

Kristin and Adam, friends and family, Father God, your Son and Holy Spirit,

Let me start by saying that I am extremely glad to be included in this ceremony for at least two good reasons. First, because I love these two people greatly. As our dean of the chapel says frequently about campus ministry, we fall in love often and we have to say goodbye often. I do fall in love with college students regularly. It is difficult to see them leave. So any chance to be involved in the lives of Adam and Kristin post graduation is a soul-warming blessing. My wife and I have had the privilege of offering them some marriage counseling these past few months. And the cliché is true, when you teach you really do receive more than you give.

The second reason why I’m thankful to be a part of this ceremony is because I believe in marriage so fiercely. It is no mistake that the Scriptures use marriage and family as a lens through which we can understand our relationship with God and our participation in the church. So as I share a few thoughts here about marriage I’m speaking first to Adam and Kristin, but I’m also speaking to my own soul, to my own marriage and to the rest of us who have much to learn about our love for God through the context of our love for each other.

We are all gathered here today to participate in one of the gladdest of occasions we can know this side of heaven. There is a delight we experience in witnessing the union of two people that little else compares with.

As I’ve imagined this day for several months, the picture I’ve held in my mind’s eye is of Adam’s grin spread from ear to ear with his face turned that bright red that many of us know well. For those of you who haven’t seen this, any time Adam has become the center of attention these past three/four years that I’ve known him, the fair skin of his face becomes instantly flushed with red. I’ve imagined Kristin’s face no less filled with light, and life and hope.

Yes, here you both are standing in front of all these people who have come from far and near. And we are all here because of you, because of the story of your falling in love, how your love has matured and how you have made the decision to commit your lives to each other and spend the rest of your days together. So I say, let your faces beam red and beautiful. This is most definitely your day.

One of the disciplines of marriage we talked about is choosing to be near and draw close to our spouses. Even though this homily is brief, we shouldn’t rush. Hold each other tight. Take a deep breath. Let’s linger here for a bit. [look around you, gather in this moment, treasure this day, absorb this place, these people, be near each other]

As performing artists the three of us know that it is possible to perform a dance or play a song without really being inside the dance or the song. We rehearse. We know our parts and we simply let muscle memory take over and suddenly the performance is finished and we have not found are way into the moment. We haven’t been present.

A wedding ceremony can be like this as surely as an entire marriage. Will your marriage be a lifelong journey of growing deeper in love? Of discovering more of yourself in the love and life of the other? As the years go by will you discover the particular love language each of you speak? Will you get better at listening and learning with each other?

Or will you let the busyness of life swallow you. Will marriage become a convenient arrangement of two good friends who happen to live in the same house and share a few children? 

The bad news is that there seem to be more reasons today not to get married than to make this commitment. We are surrounded by examples of broken marriages, suffering families, exhausted parents, bitter spouses and indifferent spouses.

Yet, the Good News is always bad news before it is Good. We need to understand what we are being saved from before we can conceive of how much help we need to live our lives.

The Good News is that your marriage has great promise. My wife and I have gotten to know you. We’ve heard you talk about what you love most in each other. We can clearly see that you are in love. The Good News, however, is greater than your own love. The Good News is that marriage has less to do with being in love with each other as it does with being in love with God.

Yes, today is your day. Today you are both on display, but the best News is that it is truly the person and love of Jesus Christ that is on display through you. The Psalmist declares, “look to him and be radiant so your faces will not be ashamed. (Psalm 34:5)” If you are smiling today, if any of us are excited and glad for you it is because we believe that the Author and Perfector of our faith is here. He has brought your stories together. And so we are looking to him. We are gazing at Christ through the beauty of the two you. Adam, you are God’s gift to Kristin. Kristin, it is God’s good pleasure to give you as a gift to Adam. Together, you are a gift to the rest of us and so we join into your joy.

The only way you can be alive to each other in this marriage for several years to come, the only way to grow deeper in love with each other and to be present in each other’s lives is if you maintain the discipline of being present to Christ, looking to him, taking him into your hearts and minds and living through Him.

The Apostle John calls this, “abiding.” “If you abide in me and I abide in you, you will bear much fruit but apart from me, you can do nothing” Jesus says to us in chapter 15 of the Gospel of John.

Jesus tells us earlier in chapter six of the Gospel that we must eat his body and drink his blood. When the disciples heard this, they agreed this was a hard teaching. Indeed, what did Jesus mean? The Lord’s Supper, eating the bread and drinking the wine is the most significant practice where we as Christians regularly set aside the busyness of our lives. We bring our anxious selves to the table and eat, we imbibe, we clothe ourselves, we draw close, we remain and dwell inside of, and we abide in the very person, the very being of God.

In the Lord’s Supper, Jesus is the person who is most brightly put on display. Yet the Lord’s Supper is not just a weekly or monthly practice. This is also our daily sacramental invitation, to sit at his table to eat of him and to abide in Him.

Here is the key of what I want to say to you today: we can abide in each other only if we first abide in Him.

When the Scriptures speak about a man leaving his father and mother and cleaving to his wife so that they become one flesh, we are not assuming that you will dissolve into each other. By becoming one in Christ you do not lose what makes each of you unique. That is adolescent infatuation. We’ve all witnessed relationships where the two people disappear into each other, where neediness grabs onto neediness, loneliness onto loneliness.

Instead, in Christ each of you come to this marriage with a fountain-of-living water-and-life flowing through you. Christ is alive in each of you and here is the Mystery of being one in Christ:

Kristin, I’ve heard Adam describe what he loves about you. You are the trusting friend; the patient one. The friend who believes the best of others. The friend who is kind and easy to be with. We all know you as a hard working artist, a dancer and a dance teacher, but the only way for you to discover more about your particular uniqueness is if you abide in Christ and if you abide in Adam through Christ.

Adam, Kristen has also described what she loves about you.  You posses an integrity and a concern about what is right. You care deeply about important ideas. We know you as the musician and the growing church leader. Yet, the only way for you to discover more about your particular uniqueness is if you abide in Christ and if abide in Kristin through Christ.

I am very close to the Roman Catholic view of marriage. Catholic’s believe that like the Lord’s Supper, marriage is one of the sacraments. And what is sacrament? A sacrament is that which edifies, that which appropriates the life of Christ into our own lives. Through the Sacraments we become more like Christ. The mystery is that through the joyful, fiery furnace of marriage Adam, you will become more you, the fuller and more true Kenneth Adam Nelson as you fall more in love with Kristin. And Kristin, you will become the fuller and more true Kristin Benner Nelson as you fall more in love with Adam.

Of course I am talking about genuine marriage, the real sacrifice of love that no film or radio song can capture. I heard a man from India once say, “In America, you shop for wives. In India we marry and learn the discipline of love.”

You’ll have the opportunity to get to know the worst about each other. You’ll see the darkness and you’ll be tempted to judge each other, to hold grudges, to doubt, to grow apart and let indifference define your days. We charge you today: do not let any numbness or deception, indifference or bitterness take foothold in your home. The discipline of marital love requires the grace of our persistence in loving and especially the love that comes through forgiveness.

This is another glimpse at the mystery of Biblical marriage: while the rest of our society participates in marriage contractually, while many agree to remain in a marriage as long as it lives up to their expectations—as long as it meets their perceived personal needs—the Christian marriage, instead, is empowered by something that no other religion or philosophy offers: you have access to the radical power of forgiveness. You are able to make the covenant till death can part you not on your own strength, not from the resources of your own kindness, or generosity. Christian marriage is radically counter-cultural in the sense that you are both called upon to forgive each other daily. As you abide in Christ, as you fall deeper in love with each other, you posture your lives toward each other through the discipline and indeed the joy of daily forgiveness. You must forgive Jesus says seventy times seven. The fountain of love and life flowing through you is this fountain of forgiveness.

Our confession is that all things were made by Christ. All things were made through him. All things are held together in him. We believe that if Christ were not seated on the throne, all of the cosmos would fall apart. Likewise, your marriage will be held together when the Christ of radical forgiveness remains on the throne of your hearts.

I close with this prayer from Colossians 1:9,10

“For this reason we will not cease praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God.”

Let it be so Lord Jesus. Amen.

New List of TOPICS - Blog Edit

I really try not to take blogging too seriously. This blog has been mostly a clearinghouse for whatever is rumbling inside. Earlier this summer, I wrote a post on Super-Pop Worship and had lots of readers. And every writer/artist loves and audience. Any who say they don't are lying or confused. Of course it makes sense that anything on corporate worship would draw more interest since that is my main work. Of course it would take me five years to realize that I should focus more on this topic.

So, in the spirit of making this blog more accessible to readers who are more interested in corporate worship, I've simplified my Index and turned it into a list of TOPICS. I simplified the topics to help someone move beyond the less interesting ephemera of my life (ie. Updates) and the political drivel (ie. Banter).

Here is a brief description of each TOPIC.

'Urban' Life
Urban farming, vermicomposting, home craft/design...anything I'm doing in the home or neighborhood to avoid living a life of "quiet desperation." Urban is used loosely.

Art
I'm a worship leader and a college professor, but I'm mostly a pastor of artists. I care mostly about creativity, creative people, creative living, creative thinking. Art.

Banter
A catch-all for anything that doesn't fit the other TOPICS. Earlier in 2008 I was writing lots about politics, but I've grown cynical and tired of that.

Books
Recommendations and the occasional review.

Corporate Worship
Anything to do with liturgy, worship music and corporate worship music.

Film
If I could do it over, I might have done a degree in film studies. A few reviews.

Good Quotes
Explains itself

Ministry
Catchall for such related topics.

Music
Mostly about independent music. Some on recording. Some reviews.

Ordinary Neighbors
My 'band," well my musical project with my wife.

Television
We've gotten addicted to a few cable TV series. Recommendations and the occasional review.

Updates
Catchall for my life. I'm not going to get into tweeting ever. This is for those friends/family who want more detail than facebook can provide.

What Food Feeds Your Soul?
Because I'm always looking for ways to subvert gnostic practices. This one goes with 'Urban' Life.

What Music Feeds Your Soul?
A series that had pretty solid readers. I don't know why I stopped writing it. Some of the recent posts on corporate worship would fit. 

Writings
A few real publications and a few self-published. This will contain sermons and other public addresses.

As always, I love the interaction. Dialogue keeps me thinking and growing. If you don't want to post public comments, you can email me a bannerj AT hope.edu

Comments? Writing = Exact Thoughts

Apologies to Nick or any others who might not have expected me to reply to their comments in a full blog post. I realized that I might have breached some trust in this "online classroom" I am trying to develop here. I'm just overeager to have interaction. It is like having a student raise her hand in class. Get the discussion going!

From now on if you've got something that you'd like to interact about and don't necessarily want to go 'public' please feel free to email me bannerj@hope.edu.

If I am anything, I am a teacher. Five years in secondary ed. Five years teaching a few college courses. That is why it makes sense for me to be a worship leader at a college. I've got a huge classroom here. Mostly I hope this blog helps me interact with Hope College students more intentionally and thoughtfully. 

I spent three days earlier this summer reading with a student going into the 8th grade. I used to teach grade 6 language arts. I picked Touching Spirit Bear a book I used to teach and know well. He is a great kid. Very bright. A great reader with attention to details, but we talk about how hard it is for him to share his thoughts in discussion.

Here is my soapbox yet once again: we largely lack skills of conversation in our society. We are good consumers, but the only way for us to own ideas is to know how to take the thoughts bouncing around in our heads and put them into sentences. If it is helpful to say things out loud, it is even more helpful to write the thoughts out.

Sir Francis Bacon: "Writing maketh and exact [person]."

W.H. Auden/ E.M. Forster/ Saul Bellow: "How do I know what I know until I see what I say?"

Western Freedom & How We All Want An Audience

I’ve been watching Exit Through the Gift Shop on Netflix with Susanna. She just fell asleep, so I’ve turned here to offer an update. I caught a bit of the Oscar bug last night just clicking around and seeing what was being covered via live streaming. I wanted to watch the main event itself so much that I started wondering if I should actually hook up the TV’s antenna. Hmmm? I just discovered all the hype about this Banksy character. Seems like someone I probably should have known about already. I have to admit there is something compelling about this new wave of street art. I’m no anarchist, but the film appeals to that part of me that wants to be naughty, rogue, outlaw, underground, sneaky, hidden—whatever you want to call it. I think all of us have wanted to have this kind of freedom, to be lawless and yet somehow still a really good person. It ends up being a kind of morality wrought out of our own created sense of self. The film is an interesting case study of what we believe it means to be free in Western Civilization today. Makes me think of that line from Richard Rorty—something about how we are no longer pioneers and explorers but artists and poets. The part of his argument that burned a hole in me when I heard it discussed in college some 15 years ago was about how ‘truth’ is an adjective not a noun.  Pragmatism. Our therapeutic culture that defers so politely and yet so viciously to our respective perspectives. Every one is entitled to an opinion. Such pluralism helped me out once when the homosexual, wicca witch who waited tables with me responded to my views on chastity by saying, “Well, it is just his culture. He doesn’t know any better.” Hope College students should be familiar with these ideas because of Trygve’s regular references to Christian Smith’s writing that defines today’s youth culture by its “therapeutic, moralistic deism.”

 

Oh, and there is some really good art in the film too. I like the film so far if only to see some of the creative process of these artists.

Speaking of creative processes, today I finally took the risk and sent some of the Ordinary Neighbors tracks out to be heard. Just two songs but still, it was a big step for me. John Erskine has been a great help with the mastering. I haven’t wanted to pay for mastering piece meal since I don’t know what this project will become. But I’ve also been anxious to hear some of it with some of these final touches.

We ended up bouncing the final stereo pair to my trusty old Otari 5050 ½ inch 8 track. The songs started on analog tape to begin with and now they have a much better sonic center after going back to tape. I was really excited about how they were sounding in the studio. But then when I got them home I began to fret and pick them apart. Susanna and John think I’m being obsessive and of course I am. I’ve told so many other artists, we have to let die the fantasy art that is floating around in our heads and pay attention to the art that is actually happening in front of us. And this is surely how I’ve gotten this far with these songs, but it is so hard to pry my white knuckled hands off the songs and let them live. I swore after my second solo record that I would to learn how to make a record that I could actually enjoy personally. That was 2001. Ten years and I don’t think I’ve accomplished this yet. I’m not sure I’ll really enjoy listening to the songs once they are assembled on a CD. But it has been a crazy fun journey. I like fiddling around in recording studios. The experience is literally a certain amount of losing your mind that is somehow enjoyable.

Yet creative process aside I believe that any artist is not being completely honest who says she is making the art only for herself—that she doesn’t care about an audience. She may or may not be telling a lie outright. Perhaps she just doesn’t yet know how to accept that tender part of herself. Every human being wants an audience. The question is how big does the audience have to be? When is enough enough?

This weekend John Erskine was my audience as he worked to master the tracks, and it was satisfying, a good shot in the arm. He’s heard a lot of music in his life. He’s made a lot of music. And for a few days he cared for my music. And that was nice.

*I wish I could find a bigger picture of my tape machine. This is my avatar for the two pro audio forms that I visit regularly, tapeop.com and gearslutz.com

Heroes & Monsters

Huge, fat snow flakes falling outside. Susanna and I become members of Crossroads Church this morning.

And this morning I'm particularly troubled by the news of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' shooting.

I love this other bit of news about how the congresswoman's new intern of five days ran toward the gunfire and most likely saved her life.

Yet, we also live in a world where this is possible:

A Couple Blog Responses: Nudity? Arts Ministry?

Here are a few responses to some blogs. Both have to do with David Taylor. Do I not believe that David can speak for himself? Of course! David is not a man of few words! LOVE you DT! He is astute, working on his PhD, and has several more books in him I'm sure. So, why do I bother? I love these conversations and can't resist. I believe that I'm going to learn some things by these interactions. Also, I've been emboldened by James K.A. Smith's review of the recently published, Hipster Christianity. He's pretty rough on the author Brett McCracken. I think that if Brett and I had an acquaintance, we could be good friends, yet Jamie's spanking of him is somewhat justified. Brett spends so much time pointing the finger that he seems ignorant that "the smeller's the feller," or "it takes one to know one." I'm letting myself be emboldened because the stakes are high with these discussions on faith and culture. These things matter.

I'll note that I don't presume to have the training or credentials to be brash in Jamie Smith's manner. Any of you are welcome to hold me accountable to writing/thinking/speaking as a brother coming alongside others. Let me know if my tone becomes patronizing. There is much to be learned about healthy internet discourse.

Two responses below: first on the question of nudity in film, the second in defense of the mission of 'art ministry." Both flow out of responses from other people to videos posted by The Gospel Coalition of DT presenting at a church planting conference.

In this video David is offering pastors a few recommendations on novels and films they might benefit from. David put the video it on his blog and a few people had trouble with his recommendation of P.T. Anderson's Magnolia especially because of the nudity (very brief yet graphic).  I'm looking forward to David's response.

My response:

This is truly a David Taylor kind of forum discussion! Love it.
My (unsolicited) 2 cents:
* I'd warn against any black and white on the topic of nudity. The Bible gives us wisdom but it will lead us each to various convictions. Insert here Paul's dictum used in 1 Corinthians, "all things are lawful but not all things are profitable." This is a scary thing for Christian brothers and sisters to accept, that what I am called to you may not be called to.
*I'd also caution against an overuse of the Incarnation to defend this issue or the arts in general willy nilly. I'm not saying the Incarnation doesn't have bearing here. Yet we have to be careful in how quick we ascribe something true about God (becoming human) to what we believe to be true about humanity. We have to maintain a distinction between us and God. See J. Begbie edited collection of essays, Beholding the Glory: Incarnation and the Arts.
*We also need to be careful in our viewing/reading/art imbibing habits. While some of us might find merit in a movie like Magnolia, I don't think it should be part of our regular 'diet.' Yes, I believe God can speak through such things, but he can speak much more plainly through the Scriptures.
*While Magnolia is a favorite of mine, I don't recommend it to people unless I know them well. In the video David is recommending the film for pastors and lay leaders who are wanting to broaden their understanding of culture and art. For a film like this to be 'profitable,' the viewer needs the maturity and training to discern the film carefully. Such a film requires not just the discernment of one person or pastor, but a good dialogue like the one here on this blog between all you good people.
*I'd also suggest that the issue of the body is much more of a poignant issue in dance than in film. Those of us working to discern such things need a theology of our bodies. Film is too close and loaded for most of us. A theology 'through the art' of dance would freshen and better frame and therefore inform questions about the body as depicted in film.
*Personally, I am more concerned about our lack of discernment in the area of violence in film. For example, why don't more Christians show concern about Peter Jackson's embellishments of war in his adaptations of the Tolkien books? My review of Showtime's Dexter is here: http://www.valpo.edu/cresset/2010/Lent/Banner_L10.html
*I watch most films with my wife. She is pretty good at helping me in the moment discern what parts of the body I shouldn't see...with her hand over my eyes!

In this other video David is talking about arts ministry at large. Here on The Gospel Coalition's site several people expressed grave skepticism about the purpose and merit of ministering to artists. These comments cut deep, yet in my response I'm truly attempting to build bridges. We'll see.

My response:

I’m an arts pastor involved in campus ministry. I’m also a contributor to David Taylor’s collection of essays. I’ve read through the comments here and want to attempt a response because we so much want to have these conversations with those of you in the church at large. After all, the book was written out of love for the body of Christ (tile: For the Beauty of the Church) and a desire to see the Kingdom of God advanced. We are not trying to put artists on a pedestal or to pit art over and above the Gospel.
First, there are many quick judgments here. I can’t help but think that you are not reacting to David so much as connecting him to other trends in the church that you’ve become confused or alarmed by. There has been lots of talk about the arts. In my estimation, the arts have become awkwardly trendy for Evangelicals. That is perhaps one of the reasons why the book was put together–to develop a more robust conversation about the arts that might serve the faithful, Gospel work of the local church pastor (David and I both come from precious work in the local church).
I encourage you to read the book. Many of your reactions here are in response to a five minute video. I don’t think many of you would like your ministries to be judged based on a five minute visit to your church. Give the book a chance. David assembled a very astute group of authors of which I am the least.
Second, I’m confused by the dualism inherent in most of these posts. The underlying assumption is that ‘culture-making’ is an optional project. We don’t have a choice whether we make culture or not. All of us daily produce culture; we practice the ordering of creation. The question is not if we are engaged in art and culture as the church, the question is how and to what extent we bring our art/culture engagement under the Lordship of Christ and how brightly his love, truth, beauty, justice shine through us.
Why the emphasis on arts ministry in the local church? Because we are trying to compensate for this kind of dualism that separates how the kingdom of God is established on earth “as it is in heaven.” If we evangelicals had a more developed theology of culture, we would not need ‘arts pastors.’ I’ll add that not all of us involved in arts ministry are naive ‘transformationalists.’ While I have hope for these things, I also understand the ultimate work of transformation is God’s alone. I teach a nuanced approach, cautious yet hopeful, “as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves” because we are “sheep among wolves.”
Finally, my emphasis on the arts is precisely out of concern for discipleship. If we don’t practice cultural discernment and champion good Christians in the arts, then we will be handing our people over to “the wolves,” to blindly to imbibe and co-opt cultural forms that compromise the Gospel. For example, contrary to your assumptions, many of us are involved in arts ministry because we are very concerned about aesthetic values of ‘the cool’ and ‘the sexy’ and want to steer the church away from hipster attempts to compete with popular culture.
grace and peace of Christ to you!

Monsoon Malabar

Susanna and I have been reading a lot lately. We finished Tim Winton’s The Shallows finally and then busted through Edgar Sawtell and are two thirds through Cold Mountain. There has been a few mentions of characters drinking coffee—descriptions of making coffee, holding the hot cups—that I’ve been wondering about how to find that same powerful, nostalgic moment in my days.

One morning this past week I made the perfect cup of Monsoon Malabar with the Clever Coffee gizmo. I realized how good it was as I was driving down College Ave to school. I was rushed in getting there and had to suck away quickly. I missed the kind of calm, solitary, watchful coffee drinking I’d been reading about. Cold morning. Wrapped up in warm clothes. Gripping the mug. But I kept thinking about the amazing balance of that brew. Hot. Strong. But not so strong that I couldn’t appreciate the roast of the bean.

Yesterday morning—Saturday—I went to church at 9:30AM to rehearse my role as narrator for this year’s Christmas play. My consolation of giving up my Saturday morning was going to be a thermal mug with another brew of Monsoon Malabar. Well, I used the larger coffee filter and added too much water and what came out didn't taste much better than the coffee they serve at church. That isn’t a knock on the church; it's a admission of the snobbery that many of us have taken to with our fancy pants, boutique roasted beans. I was probably 10 the last time I was in a Christmas play. Anyone know Psalty’s Christmas Calamity? Part of me wanted to do this because I want to experience who/what I am with all the kids, as an adult, as a father now (Casper is baby Jesus this year) and potentially as a pastor of a small church like Crossroads some day. There’s that model of a pastor I wonder if I could be, the children’s sermons, the warmth as a family man, the ‘let the children come to me’ picture of Jesus, multi-ethnic kids climbing all over his lap, birds flitting in the air around his shoulders. Apparently the rehearsal went well. That is what Celaine said at least, but I was still bumming on the poor coffee I’d made.

We slept and read most of yesterday afternoon. I woke up earlier this morning. I have an even better cup of coffee next to me right now. Robed with a blanket across my feet. The gas stove is on. It looks disgustingly cold outside especially because I know it rained yesterday and that snow is crusted ice now.

What do I do with this moment? I blog it. Judson sent me a link to Justin Vernon’s twitter account. As I clicked through it, I experienced the world of an aesthete. We saw him in concert a few years ago and yes, his performance evoked a sensual, emotional expiation. I’ve been experiencing many things deeply in this season. The dANCEpROJECt performance a month ago was at the beginning of much of it. Or was it really Capser’s birth back in May? I haven’t been writing much because this has been a season of seeing and doing, taking in, gathering, receiving. I never knew I’d be so moved by modern dance. Even the more lyrical movements of Sacred Dance last Wednesday grabbed hold of me. Cold Mountain is so visceral, Charles Frazier’s prose so evocative that I’ve been reaching for books of poetry (eg. Franz Wright) to keep me going. Two records I just picked up have been good food satisfying different appetites: Jose Gonzalez’ band, Junip and finally the Black Keys’, Brothers. Thursday night I was able to record six different student performances. Ben came in and helped me facilitate short 10-15 minute sessions with each. Then there was the team Christmas party Friday night. For the White Elephant exchange, Lauren turned a bobble head into something that evoked a strong resemblance of Larry playing the piano and I wanted it...bad. Jacob stole it. Leo made a certificate, a voucher for a date with Josh Banner. Scott Kuyper stole that. We talked about going skeet shooting because I had picked his gift, a box containing two clay pigeons. Mike gave me a Christmas ornament. He’d taken a picture of me holding Casper and pasted his own face over the baby's. Our prayer time was giddy and sweet.

In the midst of so much seeming division in our nation, I’m fighting despair by resuscitating my engagements with ‘things.’ Rilke wrote that we should ‘be near things.’ It is our public discourse, our feeding on technological trinkets. It’s as if so many are experiencing a collective heaviness, a depression. And there's death too. One friend’s father went last week. Lori’s father is in hospice. John’s dad and Susanna’s uncle are about to enter. Why are the holidays often riddled with such ‘when it rains it pours’ pain? Despite it all, in the face of it, I’m alive and kicking. And that is baffling because I’d expect at this point, the end of the semester, that I’d be numb, cold and aloof.

It’s having a family. Susanna said it last night. Having a baby changes everything. Suddenly everything matters more. Even coffee. We were made to experience the world with and through others.